picture of a gamma-ray burst
U.S. and European scientists said on January 26 that they had caught their first ever "live" picture of a gamma-ray burst - powerful explosions from space that have mystified and intrigued astronomers for decades in this NASA photograph. Reuters

Quantum physics, which lies at the root of the parallel universe theory, has got a boost with a new research that shows that more than two particles can also get entangled at the same time.

For the first time, scientists have been able to measure the quantum bond between multiple particles and have come up with this exciting discovery. Earlier research had shown the existence of such quantum entanglement or bonding between two particles only.

The Science News has cited a report in the Dec. 3, 2015, issue of the Nature to say that the discovery of quantum entanglement between multiple particles is the result of research by a team of quantum physicists from Harvard University, led by Markus Greiner. Using lasers, they created an optical cage with four compartments to measure the entanglement entropy property of particles. The researchers could adjust the height of the walls between the compartments through laser settings and found that when the walls were low, the four atoms in the compartments could interact and get entangled to occupy multiple compartments at the same time.

The theory of quantum entanglement or entanglement entropy entails interweaving of the fates of multiple particles so that some of their respective properties become tied with those of their partners. Basically, it means that multiple particles can influence each other instantly, irrespective of the distance between them. Well-known physicist Albert Einstein had dismissed such a connection as “spooky action at a distance,” but experiments over the years suggest quantum entanglement to be real.

Given the complexity involved in experimenting with multiple particles, the research marks a leap forward in developing this important quantum theory. However, replication of the theory in the real world, with larger sets of particles is still a long way off, says Peter Zoller, a theoretical quantum physicist at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

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