- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Polarization symmetry as a signature of Bell states in Compton scattering

Peter Caradonna1,* and Kenji Shimazoe1,2,†

  • *Contact author: petercaradonna65@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: shimazoe@g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023288 – Published 12 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/prj4-9vk7

Abstract

We analyze bipartite photon states in coincidence Compton polarimetry at energies where polarization must be inferred from Compton scattering. Polarization symmetry, defined as equality of signal and idler degree-of-polarization responses for all scattering angles, holds if and only if the initial two-photon state is pure and Bell equivalent. This identifies polarization symmetry as a state-level invariant that uniquely witnesses Bell-orbit structure under coincidence Compton scattering.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (23)

  1. F. Lei, A. J. Dean, and G. L. Hills, Compton polarimetry in gamma-ray astronomy, Space Sci. Rev. 82, 309 (1997).
  2. M. H. L. Pryce and J. C. Ward, Angular correlation effects with annihilation radiation, Nature (London) 160, 435 (1947).
  3. B. C. Hiesmayr and P. Moskal, Witnessing entanglement in Compton scattering processes via mutually unbiased bases, Sci. Rep. 9, 8166 (2019).
  4. P. Caradonna, D. Reutens, T. Takahashi, S. Takeda, and V. Vegh, Probing entanglement in Compton interactions, J. Phys. Commun. 3, 105005 (2019).
  5. S. Shivashankara, Entanglement entropy of Compton scattering with a witness, Can. J. Phys. 101, 757 (2023).
  6. P. Caradonna, I. D’Amico, D. G. Jenkins, and D. P. Watts, Stokes-parameter representation for Compton scattering of entangled and classically correlated two-photon systems, Phys. Rev. A 109, 033719 (2024).
  7. P. Caradonna, Kinematic analysis of multiple Compton scattering in quantum-entangled two-photon systems, Ann. Phys. (NY) 470, 169779 (2024).
  8. M. Bała, W. Krzemień, B. C. Hiesmayr, J. Baran, K. Dulski, K. Klimaszewski, L. Raczyński, R. Y. Shopa, and W. Wiślicki, Probing arbitrary polarized photon pairs undergoing double Compton scatterings by a dedicated MC simulator validated with experimental data, Eur. Phys. J. C 85, 1115 (2025).
  9. C. S. Wu and I. Shaknov, The angular correlation of scattered annihilation radiation, Phys. Rev. 77, 136 (1950).
  10. H. Langhoff, Die Linearpolarisation der Vernichtungsstrahlung von Positronen, Z. Phys. 160, 186 (1960).
  11. L. R. Kasday, J. D. Ullman, and C. S. Wu, Angular correlation of Compton-scattered annihilation photons and hidden variables, Nuovo Cimento B 25, 633 (1975).
  12. D. P. Watts, J. Bordes, J. R. Brown, A. Cherlin, R. Newton, J. Allison, M. Bashkanov, N. Efthimiou, and N. A. Zachariou, Photon quantum entanglement in MeV regime and its application in PET imaging, Nat. Commun. 12, 2646 (2021).
  13. D. Abdurashitov, A. Baranov, D. Borisenko, F. Guber, A. Ivashkin, S. Morozov, S. Musin, A. Strizhak, I. Tkachev, V. Volkov, and B. Zhuikov, Setup of Compton polarimeters for measuring entangled annihilation photons, J. Instrum. 17, P03010 (2022).
  14. D. Kim, A. N. Rachman, U. Taisei, M. Uenomachi, K. Shimazoe, and H. Takahashi, Background reduction in PET by double Compton scattering of quantum entangled annihilation photons, J. Instrum. 18, P07007 (2023).
  15. J. Bordes, J. R. Brown, D. P. Watts, M. Bashkanov, K. Gibson, R. Newton, and N. Zachariou, First detailed study of the quantum decoherence of entangled gamma photons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 132502 (2024).
  16. I. Tkachev, S. Musin, D. Abdurashitov, A. Baranov, F. Guber, A. Ivashkin, and A. Strizhak, Measuring the evolution of entanglement in Compton scattering, Sci. Rep. 15, 6064 (2025).
  17. P. Caradonna, Compton scattering mediated by quantum entanglement, Phys. Rev. A 111, 053708 (2025).
  18. K. Shimazoe and M. Uenomachi, Quantum sensing and imaging in the MeV regime of nuclear medicine, Appl. Phys. Express 19, 040104 (2026).
  19. Gyaprasad and R. Joshi, Tunable decoherence of quantum polarization states via birefringence-frequency coupling using liquid crystal, Opt. Commun. 608, 132984 (2026).
  20. P. Caradonna and K. Shimazoe, Entanglement, steering, and separability in Compton-scattered annihilation photons, Phys. Rev. A 112, 032413 (2025).
  21. A. F. Abouraddy, A. V. Sergienko, B. E. Saleh, and M. C. Teich, Quantum entanglement and the two-photon Stokes parameters, Opt. Commun. 201, 93 (2002).
  22. W. K. Wootters, Entanglement of formation of an arbitrary state of two qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 2245 (1998).
  23. W. H. McMaster, Matrix representation of polarization, Rev. Mod. Phys. 33, 8 (1961).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023288– Published 12 June, 2026
  • Received 30 December 2025
  • Accepted 27 May 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation