Sharing Entanglement without Sending It

To challenge the limited understanding of the then-young quantum theory, Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen constructed, in 1935, their EPR Gedankenexperiment, in which they introduced entangled states that exhibit strange correlations over macroscopic distances [1]. By now we have learned that entangled states are an element of physical reality. They lie at the heart of quantum physics and can, in fact, be used as a powerful resource in emerging quantum technologies. Yet we find out in amazement that we have still not completely captured the full scope of the fascinating nature of entanglement. Three different international groups have now reported in Physical Review Letters [2, 3, 4] experiments of distributing entanglement between two distant parties by sending a nonentangled carrier. These arrangements instead place the carrier in a “cheaper,” so-called separable state, which exhibit correlations that can be established remotely between separated parties.