Quantum energy teleportation
Encyclopedia
Quantum energy teleportation is a hypothesis put forward first by Japanese physicist Masahiro Hotta of Tohoku University
which proposes that it may be possible to teleport energy by exploiting quantum energy fluctuations of an entangled vacuum state of a quantum field. The hypothesis proposes that energy may be injected into a zero-point fluctuation of the field at one place, and extracted from a fluctuation at another place. Even for interstellar distance energy transfer, the amount of teleported energy is nonzero, but negligibly small. In contrast, the teleportation protocol will be effective in small quantum worlds of nanoscale devices like quantum computers.
The idea is a continuation of quantum teleportation
which was originally proposed by C.H. Bennett
, et al. in 1993 and experimentally confirmed by various experiments in the following years. Protocols of the quantum teleportation transfer quantum information, but cannot teleport energy itself.
by using local operations and classical communication (LOCC
). The locally available energy indicates the energy which can be extracted from a subsystem by local operations and harnessed for any purpose. The transfer speed can be much faster than the velocity of energy diffusion of the system. It does not allow energy transportation at superluminal (faster than light) speed, nor does it increase total energy itself contained in a distant place. Though zero-point energy
of the ground state exists everywhere in the system and contributes to the amount of the total energy, it is not available by use of ordinary local operations. However, if information about a local zero-point fluctuation, which carries a portion of the zero-point energy, is obtained by a measurement of a distant subsystem via ground-state entanglement
, the energy becomes available, and can be extracted by a local operation dependent on the information. The extraction of the energy is accompanied by generation of negative energy density, which is allowed in quantum physics of many-body systems including quantum fields, and retains the local energy conservation law. The remote measurement, which provides the information for energy extraction, injects energy into the measured subsystem. A portion of the injected energy, which amount is larger than that of the energy extracted from the zero-point fluctuation, becomes unavailable because of entanglement breaking by the measurement, and cannot be retrieved by local operations in the measurement region. Thus, during the protocol, the amount of locally available energy decreases in the measurement region, and it increases in the energy extraction region. The injected energy is the input of this teleportation protocol, and the extracted energy is the output.
The details can be found in a review article written by Hotta.
Tohoku University
, abbreviated to , located in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture in the Tōhoku Region, Japan, is a Japanese national university. It is the third oldest Imperial University in Japan and is a member of the National Seven Universities...
which proposes that it may be possible to teleport energy by exploiting quantum energy fluctuations of an entangled vacuum state of a quantum field. The hypothesis proposes that energy may be injected into a zero-point fluctuation of the field at one place, and extracted from a fluctuation at another place. Even for interstellar distance energy transfer, the amount of teleported energy is nonzero, but negligibly small. In contrast, the teleportation protocol will be effective in small quantum worlds of nanoscale devices like quantum computers.
The idea is a continuation of quantum teleportation
Quantum teleportation
Quantum teleportation, or entanglement-assisted teleportation, is a process by which a qubit can be transmitted exactly from one location to another, without the qubit being transmitted through the intervening space...
which was originally proposed by C.H. Bennett
Charles H. Bennett (computer scientist)
Charles H. Bennett is an IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Bennett's recent work at IBM has concentrated on a re-examination of the physical basis of information, applying quantum physics to the problems surrounding information exchange...
, et al. in 1993 and experimentally confirmed by various experiments in the following years. Protocols of the quantum teleportation transfer quantum information, but cannot teleport energy itself.
Description
Quantum energy teleportation is a quantum protocol which transfers locally available energy, in an operational sense, from one subsystem of a many-body system to another in an entangled ground stateGround state
The ground state of a quantum mechanical system is its lowest-energy state; the energy of the ground state is known as the zero-point energy of the system. An excited state is any state with energy greater than the ground state...
by using local operations and classical communication (LOCC
LOCC
LOCC, or Local Operations and Classical Communication, is a method in quantum information theory where a local operation is performed on part of the system, and where the result of that operation is "communicated" classically to another part where usually another local operation is performed...
). The locally available energy indicates the energy which can be extracted from a subsystem by local operations and harnessed for any purpose. The transfer speed can be much faster than the velocity of energy diffusion of the system. It does not allow energy transportation at superluminal (faster than light) speed, nor does it increase total energy itself contained in a distant place. Though zero-point energy
Zero-point energy
Zero-point energy is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may have; it is the energy of its ground state. All quantum mechanical systems undergo fluctuations even in their ground state and have an associated zero-point energy, a consequence of their wave-like nature...
of the ground state exists everywhere in the system and contributes to the amount of the total energy, it is not available by use of ordinary local operations. However, if information about a local zero-point fluctuation, which carries a portion of the zero-point energy, is obtained by a measurement of a distant subsystem via ground-state entanglement
Entanglement
Entanglement may refer to:* Quantum entanglement* Orientation entanglement* Entanglement * Entanglement of polymer chains, see Reptation* Wire entanglement...
, the energy becomes available, and can be extracted by a local operation dependent on the information. The extraction of the energy is accompanied by generation of negative energy density, which is allowed in quantum physics of many-body systems including quantum fields, and retains the local energy conservation law. The remote measurement, which provides the information for energy extraction, injects energy into the measured subsystem. A portion of the injected energy, which amount is larger than that of the energy extracted from the zero-point fluctuation, becomes unavailable because of entanglement breaking by the measurement, and cannot be retrieved by local operations in the measurement region. Thus, during the protocol, the amount of locally available energy decreases in the measurement region, and it increases in the energy extraction region. The injected energy is the input of this teleportation protocol, and the extracted energy is the output.
The details can be found in a review article written by Hotta.