Entanglement of Electrons Through Experiments: What's Possible?

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
1 reply · 2K views
DarkMattrHole
Messages
35
Reaction score
1
TL;DR
What kinds of entanglements happen to the electron from start to finish as it transits the experiment, and do they matter?
My understanding is that an elementary particle A becomes entangled when it interacts with another particle B, sharing symmetrical properties with particle B, until particle A interacts with another particle C, whereupon particle A becomes entangled with particle C.

When an electron gets fired out of an electron gun, is the electron entangled with the 'releasing' atom in the tip of the electron gun until the electron hits another particle?

What about the atoms of air in the laboratory in the path during the experiment - are the fired electrons entangling with the air as they traverse their path through the experiment? Can properties other than spin become entangled?
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
DarkMattrHole said:
Summary:: What kinds of entanglements happen to the electron from start to finish as it transits the experiment, and do they matter?

My understanding is that an elementary particle A becomes entangled when it interacts with another particle B, sharing symmetrical properties with particle B, until particle A interacts with another particle C, whereupon particle A becomes entangled with particle C.

When an electron gets fired out of an electron gun, is the electron entangled with the 'releasing' atom in the tip of the electron gun until the electron hits another particle?

What about the atoms of air in the laboratory in the path during the experiment - are the fired electrons entangling with the air as they traverse their path through the experiment? Can properties other than spin become entangled?
The double-slit experiment is really about interference rather than entanglement.

That said, the process of an electron being fired from a source, passing through the intermediate slits and being asborbed by a detector can all be analysed in more detail, when concepts like entanglement and decoherence come into the equation.