Teleportation

Quantum teleportation is a remarkable process in quantum mechanics that allows the transfer of quantum information between two quantum systems of carriers, even if they're far apart.

A two-state qubit is like a bit, but can have a measurement value of both a 0 and a 1. The quantum two-state system transfers quantum information from one location to another without losing any information. This involves moving the information between carriers, like sending voice data through phones, so nothing is "teleported". The components needed include a sender, the information (a qubit), a channel, and a receiver. An entangled quantum state has to be created for the qubit to be transferred, which places two or more particles into a single, shared quantum state. They form a connection, and their quantum states are measured. The receiver then recreates the original information that the sender had sent, resulting in the information being "teleported" or carried into a target quantum state. Any information will not travel faster than the speed of light unless a device such as a wormhole is used.

Summary of the steps:

• Entanglement Creation: This means the particles become linked, so any change to one instantly affects the other.
• Measurement: Next, the particle you want to teleport (let's call it particle A) is entangled with a third particle (particle C). Then, particles A and C are measured together.
• Transmission of Information: The measurement results from particles A and C are sent to the person who wants to teleport the particle (let's call them Alice), but no actual information about the state of particle A is sent.
• Remote Adjustment: Based on the measurement results, Alice performs certain operations on particle B, which is in her possession. These operations depend on the results of the measurements she received.
• Teleportation: After Alice performs the operations, particle B takes on the exact state that particle A had before it was measured. It's like the information from particle A has been "teleported" to particle B.
• Instantaneous Transfer: Importantly, this transfer of information happens instantaneously, thanks to the entanglement between the particles, even if they are separated by vast distances.

Some quantum-mechanical challenges for a working teleportation:

• The No-cloning theorem states that it is impossible to create an independent and identical copy of an arbitrary unknown quantum state and so the “original” is destroyed every time there is a teleportation.
• The No-deleting theorem states that given two copies of some arbitrary quantum state, it is impossible to delete one of the copies.
• The No-broadcasting theorem says that it is impossible to create two copies of an unknown state given a single copy of the state.
• The No-communication theorem states that, during measurement of an entangled quantum state, it is not possible for one observer, by making a measurement of a subsystem of the total state, to communicate information to another observer.
• The No-hiding theorem states that if information is "lost" from a system via decoherence, then it moves to subspace; thus, information cannot be lost.
• When quantum particles interact with their surroundings, their quantum states get mixed up and entangled with the environment. This loss of quantumness is called quantum decoherence.

Initially photons and quantum particles like electrons are teleported. It is vastly more difficult and requires at least yottascale computing to teleport an atom or molecule - so this is Type I. Teleporting complex lifeforms and finally sapient species are at least Type II activities, if at all possible.

Given that there are about 10²⁸ atoms in a human body or in the region of 10⁴² for the quantum level, it would take magnitudes beyond yottascale computing to store all the atomic, subatomic (nuclear) or even quantum information needed to teleport. Because of the enormous amounts of energy needed to break down nucleons (due to their high binding energy), it is presumed teleporters would work at an atomic or at most nuclear level. Teleportation of lifeforms thus requires the computing power and energy levels of Matrioshka brains, unless technology of that level can be made compact by higher level civilizations.

Quantum teleportation asks deep metaphysical questions. What happens when you die? Religions say that a “soul” can exist after death. What then happens to the soul during the transport process? If a person were teleported and remained intact and observably unchanged, it would provide dramatic evidence that a human being is no more than the sum of his or her quantum parts, and directly confront a wealth of spiritual beliefs.

Type II and above use communication wormholes or subspace to teleport matter or send information faster than light.

In Star Trek, the transporter was a "subspace" device capable of almost instantaneously transporting an object from one location to another, by using matter-energy conversion to transform matter into energy, then beaming it to or from a chamber where it is reconverted back into its original pattern. First the transporter locks on target. Then it scans the image to be transported, dematerializes it, holds it in a computer's pattern buffer for a while, and then transmits the matter stream in an “annular confinement beam” to its destination. The transporter thus sends out the matter along with the information. Biofilters were used to decontaminate transported objects and prevent harmful substances, pathogens, and even radiation from contaminating the rest of the ship or station. The range was about forty thousand kilometers, though subspace transport could beam over several light years.

A Heisenberg compensator was a component of the transporter system. The compensator worked around the problems caused by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, allowing the transporter sensors to compensate for their inability to determine both the position and momentum of the target particles to the same degree of accuracy. This ensured the matter stream remained coherent during transport, and no data was lost.

On the other end of the scale, Q could teleport at will anywhere in the universe, but they were at least Type IV entities with technology so advanced that it was magical to the species of Star Trek.

News

• 1997 - Austrian researchers teleported a photon
• 2009 - Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute teleported the state of one ytterbium ion to another ytterbium ion
• 2012 - ESA researchers have transferred the physical properties of one photon onto its entangled partner via quantum teleportation over 143 km of open air.
• 2017 - Chinese scientists teleport photon to space
• 2019 - Researchers teleport information within a diamond.
• 2020 - Nasa scientists sent qubits through 44 kilometers of fiber-optic network with a 90% degree of fidelity.
• 2023 - The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) has achieved quantum teleportation over 1200 km using a low-Earth orbit satellite, improving the teleportation rate to 7.1 qubits per second.
• 2024 - With quantum entanglement expanding to city-sized networks, a photon-nucleus entangling (PHONE) gate is used to circumvent the transfer of information problem.