Answering the question shown in the headline is quite difficult, since the problem we have is that we do not currently have an accepted theory that reconciles quantum mechanics with the theory of gravitation. On the one hand, we know how classical objects behave when they are subjected to large masses, as is the case of the black hole. For example, our galaxy, the Milky Way, orbits something we assume is a black hole; and although we don’t see it, we do know what happens to the objects close to it.
On the other hand, we know what happens to an atom when we look at it closely with our quantum mechanical eyes. Furthermore, within the quantum world particles can be entangled, much to the dismay of Albert Einstein, who did not believe in this unique property. Entanglement is so foreign to our classical minds that if I have two entangled particles and in one of them I measure a characteristic (for example, its angular momentum), automatically, even if the other is at the other end of the universe, I know where it is going. go (that is, what angular momentum it will have) because that is entanglement. Entanglement means that, if we have a particle with a characteristic and it is entangled with another, that other automatically acquires a certain value of this property dictated by the first. We could say that the two particles talk to each other, even if they were not locally in the same place.
To know this we have to do experiments in which we measure a characteristic of the first of the two particles, and then we need to measure that same characteristic in particle number two and confirm that its state is what we expected because they are entangled. To do this experiment there has to be a channel in which we verify that the two particles are entangled. And that channel is classic.
I’ll give you an example: imagine that you have the particle Alice and the particle Bob. Alice goes to Madrid and Bob to Barcelona. And imagine that what we measure is color: if Alice measures blue, Bob measures green and if Alice measures green, Bob automatically measures blue because they are intertwined. But we only know that when after measuring Alice, we also ask Bob and verify that whenever Alice measures green, Bob measures blue. For this check, we needed a classic communication channel. Typically, this classical channel is assumed to be the one in which space-time follows a Euclidean metric, or in simple words, the one we are used to. But in a black hole, space-time is deformed due to the great mass it has and we need to resort to general relativity formulated by Albert Einstein.
And now, let’s go with the answer to the question. What happens in a black hole with the information that travels through it is unknown, it is even thought that the information is largely destroyed (although it partially escapes and is known as Hawking radiation). Therefore, this would mean that we would not be able to know the two colors of Alice and Bob. So what happens to a particle entangled with another that falls into a black hole would be nothing. I think that we would not be able to know if they are intertwined or not within that black hole, since we need a channel through which the information travels and in a black hole the information does not flow, so we would not be able to communicate with them.
Rosa Lopez Gonzalo She is a professor and researcher at Institute of Interdisciplinary Physics and Complex Systems (IFISC) of the University of the Balearic Islands, its field of research is quantum transport.
Question sent via email by Hector Diaz Prato.
Coordination and writing: Victoria Toro.
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