Creation of single-photon entangled states around rotating black holes

What is it about?

Near the fast spinning black holes, space-time possesses a very particular, curved and twisted,geometry. This curvature of space-time rotates the polarization angle of photons emitted or passing near a black hole, encoding a qubit -the unit of quantum information, which is the quantum equivalent of the classical bit. Moreover, the twist of space-time imprints orbital angular momentum to photons, encoding a second qubit. Together, both the polarization and the orbital angular momentum of X-ray radiation make up the so-called two degrees of freedom of X-ray photons. Thus, the quantum information is encoded in these two degrees of freedom acquired by X-ray photons near the rotating black hole. Rotating black holes can implement quantum gates and quantum circuits, like Bell states, which are quantum counterparts of the classical computer programing. Bell states measure the degree of correlation (entanglement) between the two qubits encoded by the X-ray photons and are strongly related to the spinning speed of the black holes. The faster the black hole spins, the louder and clearer the quantum message the black hole is sending to the vast Universe.

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Why is it important?

If confirmed by astronomical observation and quantum measurements the findings in the article are quite remarkable: - establishes a new connection between quantum information and general relativity that was not discussed before; - curved and twisted spacetime near spinning black holes may process quantum information, fact that could take one to think the rotating black holes may be considered as exotic natural quantum computers; - the X-ray radiation coming from black holes must carry a quantum information component never discussed before; - the quantum messages stored in X-ray photons could be decoded.

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