First-in-human quantum entanglement imaging

Pawel Moskal; Deepak Kumar; Sushil Sharma; Ermias Y. Beyene; Neha Chug; Catalina Curceanu; Eryk Czerwiński; Atharva Dalvi; Manish Das; Alicja Hubalewska-Dydejczyk; Sharareh Jalali; Krzysztof Kacprzak; Tevfik Kaplanoglu; Łukasz Kapłon; Kamila Kasperska; Aleksander Khreptak; Grzegorz Korcyl; Tomasz Kozik; Sumit Kumar Kundu; Anoop Kunimmal Venadan; Bartosz Leszczyński; Edward Lisowski; Filip Lisowski; Justyna Mędrala-Sowa; Simbarashe Moyo; Wiktor Mryka; Szymon Niedźwiecki; Marta Opalińska; Anand Pandey; Piyush Pandey; Alessio Porcelli; Bartłomiej Rachwał; Magdalena Skurzok; Anna Sowa-Staszczak; Tomasz Szumlak; Satyam Tiwari; Pooja Tanty; Keyvan Tayefi Ardebili; Kavya Valsan Eliyan; Ewa Ł. Stepień

arXiv · 2606.29421

First-in-human quantum entanglement imaging

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Abstract

Annihilation photons are quantum-entangled in polarization, a phenomenon that has not been exploited in medical diagnostics so far. We present the first in vivo imaging of the degree of quantum entanglement of photons originating from positron-electron annihilation within a human subject. This study utilized the Jagiellonian Positron Emission Tomography (J-PET) scanner, constructed from plastic scintillators. In plastics, annihilation photons interact primarily via the Compton effect, which provides simultaneous information regarding the photon interaction position and time, as well as the photon polarization plane. The patient was injected with a DOTA-TATE radiopharmaceutical labeled with the $^{68}$Ga radionuclide. Using the J-PET scanner, we determined the image of the radiopharmaceutical uptake and, simultaneously, the image of the degree of quantum entanglement. The latter was determined from the relative angle between the polarization planes of the annihilation photons. The values of the degree of quantum entanglement extracted for the liver and the spleen are smaller than those predicted for maximally entangled two-photon states, yet larger than expected for separable photons. This demonstration opens new perspectives for the application of quantum entanglement in clinical diagnostics.

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Pawel Moskal, Deepak Kumar, Sushil Sharma, Ermias Y. Beyene, Neha Chug, Catalina Curceanu, Eryk Czerwiński, Atharva Dalvi, Manish Das, Alicja Hubalewska-Dydejczyk, Sharareh Jalali, Krzysztof Kacprzak, Tevfik Kaplanoglu, Łukasz Kapłon, Kamila Kasperska, Aleksander Khreptak, Grzegorz Korcyl, Tomasz Kozik, Sumit Kumar Kundu, Anoop Kunimmal Venadan, Bartosz Leszczyński, Edward Lisowski, Filip Lisowski, Justyna Mędrala-Sowa, Simbarashe Moyo, Wiktor Mryka, Szymon Niedźwiecki, Marta Opalińska, Anand Pandey, Piyush Pandey, Alessio Porcelli, Bartłomiej Rachwał, Magdalena Skurzok, Anna Sowa-Staszczak, Tomasz Szumlak, Satyam Tiwari, Pooja Tanty, Keyvan Tayefi Ardebili, Kavya Valsan Eliyan, Ewa Ł. Stepień. 2026-06-28. First-in-human quantum entanglement imaging. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.29421

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