(ORDO NEWS) — Although we have not yet found any evidence of alien life, this does not mean that it is not outside our reach. Now, a team of researchers has put together a mathematical model showing that aliens could potentially communicate in space using quantum physics.
Efforts to make quantum communication a reality here on Earth are in full swing. The idea is that quantum mechanics provides certain properties that will make the transfer of information faster and safer than conventional systems… if we can make it work.
One of the main obstacles that must be overcome before the creation of quantum networks. it can be established that they are very fragile and susceptible to tampering. According to this latest study, such networks can fly through space without disintegrating.
“Quantum states that you usually think of as very fragile, and if there is any external interaction, you sort of destroy this state,” lead author of the study, theoretical physicist Arjun Berera from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, told Science News.
Berera and his colleague Jaime Calderón-Figueroa, a fellow theoretical physicist at the University of Edinburgh, performed calculations on the motion of X-rays through the void of space to test for potential decoherence (the decay of a quantum state).
If photons particles of light were used as quantum particles, the researchers determined that they could travel at least hundreds of thousands of light-years, more distance than the entire Milky Way galaxy.
This is partly because the average density of matter in space is much less than on Earth, and this “cleaner” ent environment means less chance of interference. Even gravitational pull is not enough to throw a quantum communication network off course.
“It is likely that photon-mediated quantum communication can be established at interstellar distances, in particular for photons in the X-ray range. region below the mass of the electron,” the researchers write in their published paper.
That alien life forms can use quantum networks to communicate with each other or try to contact us is, of course, pure speculation, but at the same time it gives astronomers another potential sign of life they can watch for.
The “significant information transfer” possible with a quantum signal would make it attractive to any extraterrestrial intelligence in the world. space, the researchers say, although deciphering it may require a fully functioning quantum computer.
And even quantum communication isn’t magic: information still can’t travel faster than the speed of light, so transmissions can take years to reach their destination.
Based on these findings, we can now add quantum communication, as well as classical communication, to the possible ways in which aliens may communicate with each other, or perhaps may be trying to make themselves known. for us.
“In principle, it should be possible to detect a quantum signal coming from an astrophysical body, or even an intelligent signal from an extraterrestrial civilization,” the researchers write.
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