What does "Heralded " mean?

[NewHopeR]

Context:

Heralded entanglement between widely separated
atoms

Entanglement is the essential feature of quantum mechanics. Remarkably, ob-
servers of two or more entangled particles will find correlations in their mea-
surement results, that can not be explained by classical statistics. To make it a
useful resource, particularly for scalable long-distancequantum communica-
tion, the heralded generation of entanglement between distant massive quan-
tum systems is necessary. We report on the creation and analysis of heralded
entanglement between spins of two single rubidium-87 atoms trapped independently
20 meters apart. Our results illustrate the viability of an integral resource
for quantum information science, as well as for fundamental tests of quantum
mechanics.

 

[SlickVic9000]

(Not a Teacher)

Originally, a herald was a member of a distinguished person's entourage (a noble, king, knight, etc.) who went ahead of the party and announced their arrival, usually with much fanfare. 'Harbinger' is a similar concept, but he brings news of a more 'fateful' variety.
You could replace it with 'foretold', 'predicted', 'hailed', or perhaps 'anticipated', though 'heralded' sounds more grand than either one.

However, the way they use 'heralded entanglement' suggests it may be a technical term here. However, I can't find it in a dictionary, and it's not really explained in the article itself. Maybe they just mean 'heralded' in the sense of 'hailed' or 'predicted', but one would think they'd have used a 'the' before 'heralded' if that's what they meant.

 

[charliedeut]

Context:

Heralded entanglement between widely separated
atoms

To make it a
useful resource, particularly for scalable long-distancequantum communica-
tion, the heralded generation of entanglement between distant massive quan-
tum systems is necessary.

This is how I read it: The generation of entanglement (whatever that may be) has been anticipated (let's say by a theory). And this generation of entanglement is the very basis of quantum mechanics. However, entanglement between massive and distant quantum systems has not yet been demonstrated, which is a problem, since it is badly needed for scalable long-distance quantum communication.

Hope it helps.

charliedeut

 

[englishhobby]

entanglement between massive and distant quantum systems has not yet been demonstrated, which is a problem

And this problem has been solved by the authors of the article, they seem to have proved this "heralded / predicted" entanglement by their experiments.

P.S. I am neither a native speaker, nor a physicist.

 

[charliedeut]

P.S. I am neither a native speaker, nor a physicist.

Sorry, apparently I failed to state my non-mastery of physics in my post! ;-)

charliedeut