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Quantum investigation: propagation of entangled photons through cortex tissue

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Abstract

Medical techniques for scanning the brain enable imaging of its structure or function of the brain. There is growing interest in using quantum light for tissue scanning. A precise investigation of this quantum mechanical phenomenon can lead to new medical diagnostics and brain imaging techniques. In this study, we employed quantum photon pair’s, created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The technique involved preparing pairs of photons in maximally-entangled Bell states in the polarization degree of freedom. One part of the entangled photons was focused on rat brain tissue. The state of the photons passing through the brain was measured. We compared the preservation of the photon pairs’ quantum correlation in polarization via Bell parameter measurement of the transmitted entangled photons. Our results show a distinct difference in the entanglement preservation among different regions of the rat brain. The cortex tissue meaningfully preserved the photons’ correlation to a high degree despite the scattering effect , while the inner part, like the amygdala, degraded the entanglement and the Bell parameter declined to 1.31. The gradual decrease of the Bell parameter, indicating the decoherence of entangled photons in the tissue, can serve as a proper criterion to describe the characteristics of biological media. This study can be a major step toward a modern imaging method and brain mapping in the future.

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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on resonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Iranian Center For Quantum Technologies (ICQTs) for supporting and Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences for sample preparation. Also, we thank Prof.P. Azimi from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences because of their useful comments and discussions on biological issues and brain structure.

Funding

The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Photonics and Quantum Technologies Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute (NSTRI), Tehran, Iran

    H. Lotfipour, N. S. Vayaghan & H. Sobhani

  2. Physics Department, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

    M. Hafezi

Authors
  1. H. Lotfipour
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  2. N. S. Vayaghan
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  3. M. Hafezi
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  4. H. Sobhani
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Contributions

H.L. and N.S. and H. S. conceived of the presented idea. H.L. aided in interpreting the results and worked on the manuscript. N.S. carried out the experiment. M. H prepared the biological sample. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscrip. H.L. and H.S. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to H. Lotfipour or H. Sobhani.

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The authors declare no Conflict of interest.

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This is an observational study. The XYZ Research Ethics Committee has confirmed that no ethical approval is required.

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Lotfipour, H., Vayaghan, N.S., Hafezi, M. et al. Quantum investigation: propagation of entangled photons through cortex tissue. Indian J Phys (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12648-024-03250-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12648-024-03250-z

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