TY - JOUR
T1 - Quantum violation of the pigeonhole principle and the nature of quantum correlations
AU - Aharonov, Yakir
AU - Colombo, Fabrizio
AU - Popescu, Sandu
AU - Sabadini, Irene
AU - Struppa, Daniele C.
AU - Tollaksen, Jeff
N1 - Funding Information:
Y.A. acknowledges support (in part) by the Israel Science Foundation Grant 1311/14, the Israeli Centers of Research Excellence Center "Circle of Light" of Deutsch-Israelische Projektkooperation, the German-Israeli Project cooperation, and the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant Nonlocality in Space and Time (NSLT). Y.A., D.C.S., and J.T. acknowledge support (in part) by the Fetzer Franklin Fund of the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust. S.P. acknowledges the ERC Advanced Grant NSLT.
PY - 2016/1/19
Y1 - 2016/1/19
N2 - The pigeonhole principle: "If you put three pigeons in two pigeonholes, at least two of the pigeons end up in the same hole," is an obvious yet fundamental principle of nature as it captures the very essence of counting. Here however we show that in quantum mechanics this is not true! We find instances when three quantum particles are put in two boxes, yet no two particles are in the same box. Furthermore, we show that the above "quantum pigeonhole principle" is only one of a host of related quantum effects, and points to a very interesting structure of quantum mechanics that was hitherto unnoticed. Our results shed new light on the very notions of separability and correlations in quantum mechanics and on the nature of interactions. It also presents a new role for entanglement, complementary to the usual one. Finally, interferometric experiments that illustrate our effects are proposed.
AB - The pigeonhole principle: "If you put three pigeons in two pigeonholes, at least two of the pigeons end up in the same hole," is an obvious yet fundamental principle of nature as it captures the very essence of counting. Here however we show that in quantum mechanics this is not true! We find instances when three quantum particles are put in two boxes, yet no two particles are in the same box. Furthermore, we show that the above "quantum pigeonhole principle" is only one of a host of related quantum effects, and points to a very interesting structure of quantum mechanics that was hitherto unnoticed. Our results shed new light on the very notions of separability and correlations in quantum mechanics and on the nature of interactions. It also presents a new role for entanglement, complementary to the usual one. Finally, interferometric experiments that illustrate our effects are proposed.
KW - Correlations
KW - Entanglement and quantum nonlocality
KW - Foundations of quantum mechanics
KW - Two-state vector formalism
KW - Weak value and weak measurement
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84955300141&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1522411112
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1522411112
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AN - SCOPUS:84955300141
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 113
SP - 532
EP - 535
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 3
ER -