On March 24th 2015, scientists at Griffith University's Center for Quantum Dynamics in Australia and the University of Tokyo in Japan announced that they had detected the quantum entanglement of a single particle. Quantum entanglement occurs when two or more particles are connected over a vast distance. Measuring the quantum state of one of the particles reveals the quantum state of the other.
In the Griffith University/University of Tokyo experiment, a single photon was split between the two labs. Homodyne detectors, (instruments that can measure wave and wave like properties), were used to show that a change in the measurement in one lab really did cause a change of what was measured in the other. The two teams were effectively able to verify the wave form collapse and entanglement of a single photon.
What this means is that the actual photon was only ever in one of the two labs, but the wave function of the photon was detected as having been in both labs. Measuring for the particles location caused its wave function to collapse, and the photon to commit to its whereabouts. The homodyne detectors enabled the scientists to make different measurements at each locations to reveal its wave function.
Entanglement of a single particle helps somewhat to explain why a particle can appear or seem to be in more than one place at a time. It is believed that this discovery may one day be used in quantum communications and quantum computation applications.
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