The EPR paradox and quantum entanglement at sub-nucleonic scales

Abstract

In 1935, in a paper entitled "Can quantum-mechanical description of reality be considered complete?", Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) formulated an apparent paradox of quantum theory. They considered two quantum systems that were initially allowed to interact, and were then later separated. A measurement of a physical observable performed on one system then had to have an immediate effect on the conjugate observable in the other system - even if the systems were causally disconnected! The authors viewed this as a clear indication of the inconsistency of quantum mechanics. In the parton model of the nucleon formulated by Bjorken, Feynman, and Gribov, the partons (quarks and gluons) are viewed by an external hard probe as independent. The standard argument is that, inside the nucleon boosted to an infinite-momentum frame, the parton probed by a virtual photon with virtuality Q is causally disconnected from the rest of the nucleon during the hard interaction. Yet, the parton and the rest of the nucleon have to form a colour-singlet state due to colour confinement, and so have to be in strongly correlated quantum states - we thus encounter the EPR paradox at the sub-nucleonic scale. In this paper, we propose a resolution of this paradox based on the quantum entanglement of partons. We devise an experimental test of entanglement, and carry it out using data on proton-proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our results provide a strong direct indication of quantum entanglement at sub-nucleonic scales.