in the bizarre world of quantum physics objects can be in more than one place at a time and future events can change the past new research involving a texas a&m university professor makes that microscopic realm even a bit stranger quantum physicist m suhail zubairy along with a post-doctoral fellow and saudi researchers have discovered a form of almost psychic communication in which information can be exchanged between two parties without any physical particles traveling between them suhail zubairy in this figure from their physical review letters paper the research team diagrams the transmission channel in which bs and sw respectively stand for beam splitter and ideal switches note that in this case the photon is accessible to eve the groups token name for the possible third party in the alice and bob scenario an eavesdropper (credit: salih et al phys rev lett) the research to be published in the april 26 edition of the prestigious journal physical review letters and reviewed earlier this week in physics world could one day have major applications in the field of optical communication particularly for communications security in recent years this field has made major improvements in allowing for the secure transfer of credit-card information between consumer and vendor with this new research it could go a tantalizing step further: there simply wouldnt be any data to steal in the first place within the communication channel zubairy however is careful not to make any claims about applicability of the discovery just yet right now this is a new beautiful idea said zubairy a professor in the department of physics and astronomy and holder of the munnerlyn-heep chair in quantum optics im looking at it like a painter or poet looks at art or poetry could there be use yes but our main goal right now was simply to understand the basic science first who knows what kinds of applications could be envisioned in the future zubairy and the researchers use the example of alice and bob to illustrate their findings which are detailed in a paper titled protocol for direct counterfactual quantum communication its long been assumed in physics that for information to travel in empty space between two parties alice and bob physical particles have to travel between them but by using a series of beam splitters the researchers created a setup in which information can be exchanged between alice and bob without any photons tiny units of electromagnetic light actually passing through the communication channel introducing what zubairy calls a new paradigm in quantum communication the basic set-up works like this: a photon leaving alices station can on bobs end have its polarization state switched or kept the same in other words bob has the choice of either absorbing the bit of information or not absorbing it depending on what bob chooses different detectors are set off on alices end so alice can figure out bobs choice by checking her own detectors the counterintuitive result: a communication occurred between alice and bob but the photon never left alices station in technical terms we call this ‘counterfactual zubairy said its been believed that if two parties want to communicate something needs to be sent and something is allowing for its passage thats been an underlying assumption in every communications system this is the first possible setup where that doesnt exist thats what i mean by ‘almost psychic zubairy who is a member of texas a&ms world-renowned institute for quantum science and engineering says he was inspired by the development in recent years of a branch of quantum cryptography called quantum key distribution a system that allows secure communication between two parties by the exchange of keys that allow for decoding of messages sent through a public channel what we are proposing goes a couple steps beyond that zubairy said we are talking about direct communication not through a key now we have a protocol for eliminating the middle man from a fundamental point of view this is amazing it sort of brings up these old questions such as what is a photon zubairy co-authored the paper along with a texas a&m post-doctoral fellow zheng-hong li and two researchers from the national center for mathematics and physics at the king abdulaziz city for science and technology in saudi arabia hatim salih and mohammad al-amri the concept of two parties communicating without exchanging particles is mind-boggling and highly counterintuitive al-amri said it raises interesting questions: how could alice sense bobs moves when her photon never left her station a member of the texas a&m physics and astronomy faculty since 2004 zubairy earned his masters in physics from quaid-i-azam university in pakistan in 1974 and his doctorate in physics from the university of rochester in 1978 his honors include fellowships from the pakistan academy of sciences optical society of america and american physical society he also is a co-author along with fellow texas a&m quantum physicist marlan scully of a 1997 textbook titled quantum optics learn more about zubairys research for more information about the texas a&m department of physics and astronomy visit http://physicstamuedu/ # # # # # # # # # # about research at texas a&m university: as one of the worlds leading research institutions texas a&m is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge including that of science and technology research conducted at texas a&m represents an annual investment of more than $700 million that research creates new knowledge that provides basic fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state nation and world to learn more visit http://vprtamuedu -atm- contact: vimal patel (979) 845-7246 or vpatel@sciencetamuedu or dr m suhail zubairy (979) 324-1780 or zubairy@physicstamuedu