>>14005153>>14005362To perform their entanglement experiment, Dumke and co cooled their tardigrade to below 10 millikelvin, almost to absolute zero, while reducing the pressure to a millionth of that in the atmosphere. In these conditions, no chemical reaction can occur so the tardigrade’s metabolism must have entirely halted stopped and the processes of life halted.
“This is to-date the most extreme exposure to low temperatures and pressures that a tardigrade has been recorded to survive, clearly demonstrating that the state of cryptobiosis ultimately involves a suspension of all metabolic processes given that all chemical reactions would be prohibited with all its constituent molecules cooled to their ground states,” say the researchers.
In this condition, the tardigrade can be thought of as a purely dielectric element. Indeed, the researchers simulated their experiment by treating the tardigrade as a dielectric cube.
The experimental set up consisted of two superconducting capacitors, which when cooled can exist in a superposition of states called a qubit. They placed the tardigrade between the capacitor plates of one qubit so that it became an integral part of the capacitor. The team were then able to measure the effect of the tardigrade on the qubit’s properties.
Next, they entangled this qubit with its neighbor so that the entire system became a single quantum object. In other words, the tardigrade was entangled with its immediate environment.
“We observe coupling between the animal in cryptobiosis and a superconducting quantum bit and prepare a highly entangled state between this combined system and another qubit,” say Dumke and co.
Finally, having been in cryptobiosis for over two weeks, the team slowly warmed up the tardigrade while re-introducing it to ordinary atmospheric pressure. “The animal is observed to return to its active form, setting a new record for the conditions that a complex form of life can survive,” say the team.
