Quantum entanglement confirmed in Z bosons at LHC

Physicists at the University of Oxford and an international research team have found strong evidence of quantum entanglement between pairs of Z bosons produced at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The result extends experimental tests of one of quantum physics’ most counterintuitive effects to particles that are both extremely massive and extraordinarily short-lived. The study used data from the ATLAS experiment to examine Z bosons created when Higgs bosons decay.

Each Z boson survives for only a tiny fraction of a second before breaking down into other particles, yet measurements of those decay products revealed the characteristic correlations expected from quantum entanglement.

The finding, published in Physical Review Letters , provides one of the highest-energy demonstrations of quantum entanglement to date.

It also strengthens the case for using particle colliders as laboratories for investigating quantum mechanics under conditions far removed from conventional quantum experiments.