Global Edition

Insider

Magazine

Business Reports

Lists

Events

More

About

Newsletters

Support

Contact Us

Emtech MIT

MIT Enterprise Forum

Connect

Select your localized edition:

Close ×

English

Español

Deutsch

Italiano

Português

中文

العربية

Filter by:

News and Analysis

Magazine

List: Innovators Under 35

Conferences and Events

Argentina

Brasil

Colombia

Deutschland

Italia

México

Portugal

España

United States

Uruguay

中国大陆

Pan Arab

More Ways to Connect

Discover one of our 28 local entrepreneurial communities »

Be the first to know as we launch in new countries and markets around the globe.

Interested in bringing MIT Technology Review to your local market?

Search

Log In / Join

New

Popular

Login / Join

MIT Technology Review

Home
News & Analysis
▾

Features

Views

Multimedia

Discussions

Topics

Popular:

HP’s Machine Dreams

Edited Embryos

Perfect Babies

Neural Probes

Government vs. Encryption

Internet Inequality

Smartphone Eye Exam

Subscribe

Buy Now

June 1-2, 2015
St. Regis Hotel
San Francisco

Register Now

Home

Home

Biomedicine

Business

Computing

Energy

Materials

Mobile

Top Stories

Photo Essay

Multifunctional Brain Probes

Antonio Regalado | Photographs by Ken Richardson

0

Human Embryos Edited in China

Antonio Regalado

Smartphone Eye Exam

Rachel Metz

White House Considers Encryption a Problem

Tom Simonite

See More Top Stories

Menu

News & Analysis

Magazine

Lists

Events

About

More

Features

Views

Multimedia

Discussions

Topics

Popular:

HP’s Machine Dreams

Edited Embryos

Perfect Babies

Neural Probes

Government vs. Encryption

Internet Inequality

Smartphone Eye Exam

Current Issue

Past Issues

MIT News Magazine

International Editions

Business Reports

Special Publications

Subscriptions »

Smartest Companies

Innovators Under 35

Breakthrough Technologies

Nominations »

Upcoming Events

Partner Events

Emtech MIT

MIT Enterprise Forum

Our Team

Join Us

Press Room

Awards

Advertise

Permissions

Contact Us

Customer Support »

Support

Contact Us

Emtech MIT

MIT Enterprise Forum

Insider

Connect

The Latest

Popular

Most Shared

My Profile

Unsupported browser: Your browser does not meet modern web standards. See how it scores »

Want to go ad free?

Comments

Email

Service

Service

More Share

Print

How Entanglement-Generating Satellites Will Make the Quantum Internet Global

View

4 comments

Emerging Technology From the arXiv

October 30, 2014

How Entanglement-Generating Satellites Will Make the Quantum Internet Global

Sending entangled photons to opposite sides of the planet will require a small fleet of orbiting satellites, say physicists.

One of the challenges that physicists face in creating a quantum Internet is to distribute entangled photons around the planet. The idea is that a user in Tokyo could use this entanglement to send a perfectly secure message to somebody in Moscow or Johannesburg or New York.

The problem is that entangled photons are difficult to send over these distances because optical fibers absorb then. This process of absorption limits the distance that physicists can distribute entanglement to about 100 kilometers.

One solution is to place quantum repeaters along a fiber that pass on the entanglement without destroying it. Physicists are currently developing these kinds of devices and expect to have them operating in the next few years.

However, quantum repeaters will operate at temperatures close to absolute zero and require their own power and cooling infrastructure. That is all possible on land but is much harder to make work for transoceanic cables. Which is why physicists are looking for alternative ways to distribute entanglement over long distances.

Today, Kristine Boone at the University of Calgary in Canada and a few pals outline a plan to distribute entanglement around the planet from satellites orbiting a couple of hundred kilometers above the Earth. “Our proposed scheme relies on realistic advances in quantum memories and quantum non-demolition measurements and only requires a moderate number of satellites equipped with a tangled photon pair sources,” they say.

One feature of quantum technology is that it is rapidly changing as advances are made in laboratories all over the planet. But any technology aboard a satellite cannot be changed once it is launched. So a potential danger with a satellite-based network is that it would be unable to take advantage of important advances.

Boone and co get around this by keeping much of the most advanced technology on the ground. Their proposed satellites will be little more than vehicles for producing entangled photons, a process that is relatively well understood and straightforward to achieve.

Each satellite will generate a constant stream of entangled pairs. Each member of the pair will be sent to separate stations on the ground, where it will be stored in quantum memories. In this way, the satellites will entangle quantum memories across the globe.

The ground stations will consist of relatively small one-meter telescopes, aimed at the satellites as they pass overhead. These will collect photons and direct them towards quantum memories. It is the quantum memories that are likely to advance rapidly in the coming years.

Once the entanglement is stored on the ground, it can then be used as needed to send secure messages, or even sent locally across the quantum Internet using short optical fibers.

Simon and co perform various calculations to show that their proposal is well founded. “We have argued that quantum repeaters based on LEO satellite links are a viable approach to global quantum communication,” they say.

An interesting question is whether the system they propose would be better than the one we discussed last week in which entanglement is transported around the world in quantum memories on containerships. At first glance, that seems to have the potential to be cheaper given that the transport infrastructure is already in place and known to be cost-effective. By contrast, rocket launches, and the satellites they carry, are hugely expensive.

One thing is clear. Entanglement is set to become a valuable resource that is likely to be bought and sold, much like oil and gas today. Just how the incipient market for entanglement emerges will be interesting to watch.

Ref: http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5384 : Entanglement Over Global Distances via Quantum Repeaters with Satellite Links

4 comments. Share your thoughts »

0
comments
about this story.
Start the discussion »

Tagged:
Web

Reprints
and Permissions
|
Send feedback to the editor

Related stories

You may have missed

More from this author

How Benford's Law Reveals Suspicious Activity on Twitter

The counterintuitive distribution of digits in certain data sets turns out to be a powerful tool for detecting strange behavior on social networks.

Continue

0

How a Troll-Spotting Algorithm Learned Its Anti-antisocial Trade

11

Network Archaeologists Discover Two Types of Social Network Growth in Historical Facebook Data

0

An Emerging Science of Clickbait

1

Twitter Data Mining Reveals the Origins of Support for Islamic State

8

Goodbye, Internet Explorer

6

Data Mining Indian Recipes Reveals New Food Pairing Phenomenon

5

Computational Anthropology Reveals How the Most Important People in History Vary by Culture

12

The Facebook Page That Posts the Same Picture Every Day

4

Machine Dreams

To rescue its struggling business, Hewlett-Packard is making a long-shot bid to change the fundamentals of how computers...

Continue

6

May/June 2015

The May/June issue is all online and free to read right now. Features on HP’s ambitions to reinvent the computer;...

Continue

The Real Privacy Problem

As Web companies and government agencies analyze ever more information about our lives, it’s tempting to respond by passing...

Continue

44

A Potato Made with Gene Editing

Plant scientists can swiftly modify crops in ways that would take years with conventional breeding.

Continue

6

A Way to Get Much-Higher-Resolution Selfies

A startup called Light uses a cluster of small camera modules to create top-notch photos. First stop: Your smartphone.

Continue

6

Solving the Autism Puzzle

For years scientists searched fruitlessly for the causes of autism by looking for genes shared by families prone to the...

Continue

18

Emerging Technology From the arXiv Contributor

View Profile »

RSS

How Benford's Law Reveals Suspicious Activity on Twitter

0

Other Interesting arXiv Papers (Week Ending April 18, 2015)

1

The Chances of Another Chernobyl Before 2050? 50%, Say Safety Specialists

20

First Quantum Music Composition Unveiled

4

Other Interesting arXiv Papers (Week ending April 11, 2015)

0

How a Troll-Spotting Algorithm Learned Its Anti-antisocial Trade

11

Machine Learning Algorithm Mines 16 Billion E-Mails

1

Military Scientists Solve the Mystery of the Foul-Smelling Gas That Enveloped Norway, Sweden, and Finland

4

See all from this author

The Latest

Popular

Most Shared

16 hours ago

Chinese Scientists Say They Are First to Engineer Human Embryos

17 hours ago

Google's New Wireless Service Should Make Verizon and AT&T Squirm

20 hours ago

Smartphone Eye Exam Fits in a Suitcase

22 hours ago

Government vs. Encryption

View from the Marketplace

Making Innovation Happen: Crossing the Chasm Between Concept and Development

In partnership with Sagentia

Risk Management Today: Trends and Tools

A Thought Leadership Series Provided By

23 hours ago

Apps Built on Apple’s Health Platform Will Offer Medical Advice, Thanks to IBM

1 day ago

How Benford's Law Reveals Suspicious Activity on Twitter

2 days ago

Power to the People

2 days ago

Better Architecture

2 days ago

Making Fibers to Probe the Mind

The Revolution In Robotics

Brought to you by

2 days ago

Peace Through Grids

2 days ago

Genome Gambits

Listen to our new podcast for a preview of what you’ll experience at EmTech Digital.

Innovations, Ideas, and Insights

Provided by

2 days ago

Editing Human DNA

2 days ago

HP Seeks to Reinvent the Computer

2 days ago

Eat Your Veggies

3 days ago

Gene-Editing Potatoes

See full archive

16 hours ago

Chinese Scientists Say They Are First to Engineer Human Embryos

17 hours ago

Google's New Wireless Service Should Make Verizon and AT&T Squirm

20 hours ago

Smartphone Eye Exam Fits in a Suitcase

22 hours ago

Government vs. Encryption

View from the Marketplace

Making Innovation Happen: Crossing the Chasm Between Concept and Development

In partnership with Sagentia

23 hours ago

Apps Built on Apple’s Health Platform Will Offer Medical Advice, Thanks to IBM

1 day ago

How Benford's Law Reveals Suspicious Activity on Twitter

2 days ago

Power to the People

2 days ago

Better Architecture

2 days ago

Making Fibers to Probe the Mind

2 days ago

Peace Through Grids

2 days ago

Genome Gambits

2 days ago

Editing Human DNA

2 days ago

HP Seeks to Reinvent the Computer

2 days ago

Eat Your Veggies

3 days ago

Gene-Editing Potatoes

See full archive

16 hours ago

Chinese Scientists Say They Are First to Engineer Human Embryos

17 hours ago

Google's New Wireless Service Should Make Verizon and AT&T Squirm

20 hours ago

Smartphone Eye Exam Fits in a Suitcase

22 hours ago

Government vs. Encryption

View from the Marketplace

Making Innovation Happen: Crossing the Chasm Between Concept and Development

In partnership with Sagentia

23 hours ago

Apps Built on Apple’s Health Platform Will Offer Medical Advice, Thanks to IBM

1 day ago

How Benford's Law Reveals Suspicious Activity on Twitter

2 days ago

Power to the People

2 days ago

Better Architecture

2 days ago

Making Fibers to Probe the Mind

2 days ago

Peace Through Grids

2 days ago

Genome Gambits

2 days ago

Editing Human DNA

2 days ago

HP Seeks to Reinvent the Computer

2 days ago

Eat Your Veggies

3 days ago

Gene-Editing Potatoes

See full archive

Want to go ad free?

4 comments

Get Livefyre

FAQ

Sign in

6 people listening

+ Follow

Share

Post comment as...

Custom HTML Preview

Loading

Newest | Oldest | Top Comments

phil.chapman 5ptsFeatured
Oct 31, 2014

Does this mean that the starship Enterprise can set off with a supply of entanglement that Captain Kirk can use for instantaneous communication with Starfleet, just as StarTrek showed? Can additional supplies of entanglement be sent at the leisurely speed of light to depots around the galaxy, so that the Enterprise can pick up more when needed?

I find this hard to believe. In the derivation of special relativity, c is really the maximum speed of communication  - but the energy released in nuclear reactions shows that the c in E=mc^2 equals the speed of light. Isn't that empirical proof that we can't send faster messages?

FlagShare
LikeReply

coherence 5ptsFeatured
Nov 3, 2014

@phil.chapman

Both quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation harness entanglement as an information resource—for guaranteed secure communications, and for quantum state reconstruction, respectively. Both applications require a classical side-channel, however, so superluminal, or faster-than-light communications are precluded under Eberhard's no-communications theorem.

Wavefunction collapse is instantaneous, but it's also stochastic. Measurement results for an entangled pair are irreducibly random, so it's not possible to harness this property for instantaneous communications. Entanglement-assisted communications—such as quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation—require a classical side-channel to correlate the resulting measurements.

The no-cloning theorem further prohibits us from copying qubits. The only way to circumvent this—even in principle, to the best of our contemporary models—would be to harness a closed timelike curve or stable Einstein-Rosen bridge—both of which are hypothetical constructions, and unrelated to the technologies currently employed for entanglement-based secure quantum communications.

Note that under special relativity, both loopholes—closed timelike curves and Einstein-Rosen bridges—may sidestep the speed of light from the remote observer's perspective, but under no circumstances is the speed of light exceeded in the local reference frame.

Ad Astra,

– Christopher

Research Journal http://www.superconducting.blogspot.com
LinkedIn http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/Altman
Facebook http://www.fb.com/Quantum.Astronaut
Twitter @coherence

FlagShare
LikeReply

Sakkmester 5ptsFeatured
Oct 31, 2014

https://www.academia.edu/7229968/The_Secret_of_Quantum_Entanglement

FlagShare
LikeReply

freddyzzdead 5ptsFeatured
Nov 26, 2014

@Sakkmester this "paper" is mind-numbingly wrong.

FlagShare
LikeReply

Show More Comments

Show comments »

Conversation powered by Livefyre

New & Trending

HP’s Machine Dreams

Edited Embryos

Perfect Babies

Neural Probes

Government vs. Encryption

Internet Inequality

Smartphone Eye Exam

Chinese Team Reports Gene Editing Human Embryos

Google's New Wireless Service Should Make Verizon and AT&T Squirm

A Smartphone Eye Exam Service Launches in New York

White House and Department of Homeland Security Want a Way Around Encryption

From the Archives

A Study in Complexity

17 years ago

Prescription RNA

12 years ago

The Law of Online Sharing

3 years ago

Clean Gas

5 years ago

more

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

...1899

more

Close

Introducing MIT Technology Review Insider.

Already a Magazine subscriber?

You're automatically an Insider. It's easy to activate or upgrade your account.

Activate Your Account

Become an Insider

It's the new way to subscribe. Get even more of the tech news, research, and discoveries you crave.

Sign Up

Learn More

Find out why MIT Technology Review Insider is for you and explore your options.

Show Me

×

A Place of Inspiration

Innovations and Ideas Fueling
Our Connected World

June 1-2, 2015

Register »

News and Analysis

Home

Popular

Today's News

Blogs

Photo Galleries

Videos

Back to Top

The mission of MIT Technology Review is to equip its audiences with the intelligence to understand a world shaped by technology.

Editions

Find your preferred version. Choose from six languages and in 13 regions worldwide.

Archives

Explore 116 years of innovation from the most respected technology publication.

Lists

Discover the most important people, companies and technologies shaping our future.

Events

Attend one of our over 400 thought-provoking live events worldwide.

Subscribers

Have MIT Technology Review delivered to your doorstep, desktop, or tablet.

More

Newsletters

MIT Enterprise Forum

MIT News Magazine

EmTech

Company

About Us

Work for Us

Advertise with Us

Reprints and Permissions

Your Account

Join

View Profile

Manage Account

Manage Subscription

Customer Support

Help / Support

Contact us

Feedback

Sitemap

Connect

Twitter

LinkedIn

YouTube

Google+

StumbleUpon

Facebook

RSS

Mobile

MIT Technology Review

Ethics Statement

Terms of Service

Privacy

Commenting Guidelines

© 2015

v1.13.05.10

freddyzzdead

cookinggamesabc

coherence

phil.chapman

Sakkmester