In the last post, I postulated that coherence between two entangled particles cannot be a field, and went on to conclude that distance would then have to be an emergent property–that is, the decoherence correlation between entangled force particles does not act over distance but through an unseen “sideband” dimension.
The rules (math) for entangled particles are applied as if entangled particles are a single entity spread over distance, so positing that it doesn’t occur via a connection field is an enormously radical line of thought. I need to be really certain I believe there is no way a field could be responsible for decoherence correlation, so I spent a lot of time thinking of any possible way to prove it or test it. I have a thought experiment (which should be practical to do, construction should be similar to building a quantum computer) which shows you one reason I think this way:
Suppose we construct an entangled particle emitter such that the particles are routed in opposite directions from each other through, for example, a fiber optic cable channel for photons or a fine single atom wire for spin-up/down electrons. We put quantum state detectors several miles away on each end. We set the emitter to periodically emit entangled particles, and check both for loss of coherence due to overlapping coherence connection fields and for correlation between consecutive pairs. Either one would violate quantum mechanics. We know that each pair particle must correlate exactly–a spin up on one entangled particle means the other will always be spin down, so seeing coherency lost would imply presence of a connection field.
UPDATE: eeek, can’t use a fiber optic cable for entangled photons–interaction with atoms in the cable would destroy coherence. Even the electron case with a wire will have the same problem. The channel for particles will have to be a vacuum…
But what about between pairs? If we set up emission rates such that there are, say, thousands of entangled particles in flight at the same time, there will be thousands of connection paths overlapping each other. Since no part of this configuration allows for detection of states until they reach the detector, quantum mechanics says there will be no correlation between pairs. If the connection is a field, this configuration means that coherence has to hold for all pairs in spite of superposition of thousands of connection fields. Since the entanglement states for pairs must be random, a connection field would affect sequences of pairs and we should be able to detect a correlation between pairs. If a connection field is what maintains coherence, we should see both lost coherence cases, and correlation between pairs should start to occur. Entanglement connection fields means that quantum mechanics will be violated even though no detection of particles has occurred.
Am I certain? Let’s look at a couple ways we could have entanglement connection fields and yet not violate quantum mechanics.
It is possible that by the time the inner (later emitted) particles reach the detectors, coherence will be restored, but that won’t work. All you have to do is insert detectors in between the existing detectors and the emitter at a time just after the pipeline of particles is filled–at a location where many overlapping fields exist, and those detectors will see that coherence is lost and that there will be correlations between pairs.
Another possibility is that the connection fields don’t superpose, but instead repel each other and form smaller channels (strings) so all can fit independently within the particle channel. While possible, this looks like a pretty absurd proposition to me. I’ll keep thinking about this and see if I change my mind. The field behavior in the spin-up/down entangled electron case travelling via a single atom wire would be very complex and improbable in my mind.
As outrageous is my claim that distance is an emergent property and quantum decoherence occurs via an unseen dimension independent of distance, I think there is good evidence for it, or some permutation of it here. Something about decoherence is hidden from us. It cannot occur over distance with fields and the laws of physics we have now.
Agemoz
Agemoz's Physics Blog 
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