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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 30 March 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It reviews quantum entanglement, nonlocality and EPR experiments, and asks whether nonlocal quantum effects could carry observer-to-observer signals faster than light. The paper describes proposed experiments and an example of real-time Earth control of a Mars rover. It concludes that there is no compelling answer yet and that experimental tests are needed.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/30/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD reviews quantum entanglement and nonlocality with a focus on whether those phenomena might be usable as a means of faster-than-light communication between observers, especially for real-time space operations over interplanetary distances. The report surveys the relevant quantum experiments and no-signal theorems, then examines proposed communication schemes based mainly on momentum-entangled photons, including scenarios involving superluminal and retro-causal signaling. However, it repeatedly acknowledges that the central question remains unresolved experimentally, and it gives substantial attention to the coherence-versus-entanglement tradeoff and other features of standard quantum mechanics that may prevent usable signaling even if non-local correlations are experimentally validated. Overall, the document is an exploratory analysis of whether quantum nonlocality could conceivably support a practical communications application rather than a demonstration of prospective utility.
UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'FOR OFFI@IsT.tk WS& OPtklf Coherent Superposition: The formation of a quantum mechanical state (for example, right circular polarization) by add in g components of other states (for example, le~ and right polarization) with a definite complex phase between the added states. Collapse: A quantum mechanical wave function is said to collapse to a particular basis value when a measurement is made in that basis. For example, if a photon is emitted isotropically (with equa l probability in all directions), its wave function is distributed uniformly over a sphere with a radius that grows at the speed of light until it is detected . Upon detection, the photon's wave function is localized at the detection point and disappears everywhere else . Entangled: The separated parts of the same quantum system are said to be entangled when each of the parts can be described only by referencing the state of other parts . This is one of the most counterintuitive aspects of quantum mechanics, because, classica lly, system parts out of "local" contact should be completely independent. Thus, entanglement represents a kind of quantum " connectedness" in which measurements on one isolated part of an entang led quantum system have nonclassical consequences for the outcome of measurements performed on other (possibly very distant) parts of the same system. EPR Experiment: A class of experiments with entang led particles, usually photons, that demonstrate quantum nonlocality. A gedankenexperiment of this kind was first suggested in the famous 1936 paper by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (Reference 4) in which a set of criticisms of quantum mechanics were presented. Hidden Variable Theories: A set of alternatives to quantum mechanics intended to satisfy the objections of the EPR paper in which the uncertainty principle does not apply and a quantum system can simultaneously have definite values of complementary variables like positi on and momentum, provided one of these values is somehow "hidden." Hidden variable theories are usually also "local" (see below) to deal with Einstein's objection to the nonlocality of quantum mechanics. Immaculate Conception Paradox: A type of back-i n-time commun ication paradox in which a completely consistent causal loop produces information with no known origin. An example is the Book Paradox, in wh ich an author receives a book in a message from the future. He publishes it, and when the t ime comes, he transmits the manuscript to himself in the past. The question then arises, Who wrote the book? In this case, no inconsistent timelike loops are involved, and the arguments against bilking (see above) do not apply in this case . Locality: The assumption that the correlations between parts of a system can be established only while the subsystems are in contact (or speed-of-light communication), and that once out of such contact, no changes in such correlations are possible. Nonlocality: The situation, apparently present in quantum mechanics, in wh ich correlations between parts of a system can be established independent of the separation of the parts in time and space. Retro-Causal: Situations in theory or in the real world where t he effect precedes the cause, in violation of the principle of causality . UNCLASSIFIED/ /fOR. 0rr1e11et U:!I! OHL I 25
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