Project "Mantis Shrimp"*

(my postdoc dream project - started January 14th, 2025; latest update: January 3rd, 2026)

I know that these are,

So far,

Futile attempts,

But I feel closer

To a "machine of time"

Than anyone else

*Got its name from the animal that performs the fastest movements in nature (faster than the hummingbird). The mantis shrimp also has remarkable vision, and peculiarly survives its own shockwaves.

Summary: If we "set" photons, photon bundles in underground orbits (in fiber-optic(-like) tunnels) around the Earth, whilst they are entangled with stationary quantum computers (their specific particles) acting as readout systems, that could mean a communication advantage in several major social areas (market, government, military), along with respective risks, as this system might be able to "compress" distances even more than they are now, in terms of data transmission.

Additional points:

Some challenges: decoherence (+ electromagnetic shielding); cost efficiency; the sustainability of construction
Uncertain challenges: Earth's magnetic field and rotation (we would need a gyroscope effect against them, if they are significant); photonic Doppler effect
Black hole relevance: event horizon / photon sphere as an alternative setting (+ Black Hole Information Paradox)

The Sagnac version: Classical fibre-optic gyroscopes measure rotation by detecting tiny time differences between light traveling clockwise and counter-clockwise around a loop. Entangled photons could be used in such loops, around the Earth, so that Earth’s rotation appears directly in their shared interference pattern. This approach could make rotation sensing more stable and precise, opening the way to satellite-independent navigation and new methods for monitoring changes in Earth’s motion.

Related (so far, thought) experiment: A series (~ sequence) of entangled photon bundles (evenly distributed along the path) could be sent towards/to the nearest black hole, Gaia BH1, from where they would act as a bridge of information extracted from the photon sphere of the black hole, and thus, potentially, from the black hole's past. (Specific inspiration: the Hawking Information Paradox; The 3 Body Problem, Season 1 (the space engineering aspects).)

Note: I used large language models (ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, primarily) to refine and extend my ideas here.

Inspirations

Books:

George Gamow: One, Two, Three... Infinity (1947)
Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Time (1998)

Audio:

the accelerating elevator thought experiment(s) by Albert Einstein (heard about it on The Math and Physics Podcast by Parker and Ray)

General film inspo:

The Imitation Game (2014)
The Theory of Everything (2014)
The Hummingbird Project (2018)
Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know (2020, documentary)

Sci Fi film inspo:

Minority Report (2002)
Paycheck (2003)
Interstellar (2014)
Tenet (2020)

Generated "on the go"

Precision Tests of Quantum Electrodynamic Phase Shifts Using Entangled-Photon Interferometry in Structured Electromagnetic Environments

We propose a precision interferometric experiment employing polarization- and path-entangled photon pairs to probe extremely weak quantum electrodynamic (QED) modifications to photon propagation in structured electromagnetic environments. One photon of each entangled pair traverses a carefully engineered region featuring controlled boundary conditions and time-dependent electromagnetic fields, while its partner propagates along a stable reference path. The resulting two-photon interference provides a differential, quantum-enhanced phase measurement that is intrinsically insensitive to common-mode noise.

The experiment targets higher-order vacuum-mediated effects predicted by QED and effective field theories, including vacuum polarization–induced refractive index shifts, photon–photon interactions mediated by virtual electron–positron pairs, and Casimir–Polder–type modifications near structured materials. By tailoring the electromagnetic environment to enhance field confinement and vacuum fluctuations, these otherwise inaccessible effects can produce measurable phase shifts in joint detection correlations, without relying on nonlinear optical materials.

Entanglement enables sensitivity beyond classical interferometry by accessing nonlocal phase information and reducing technical noise through correlation-based readout. The use of null and symmetry-based measurement protocols allows vacuum contributions to be distinguished from conventional material dispersion and loss. The proposed platform provides a scalable testbed for precision QED measurements at optical frequencies and offers a new route to experimentally constrain photon self-interactions and higher-order electromagnetic effects in regimes inaccessible to classical probes.