Quantum information teleported between distant atoms

There still seems to be a bit of an argument about this, but the prevaling view appears to be that no actual information is being transmitted as such, so the question is nonsensical. (you cannot influence or predict to which state the wavefunction will collapse without changing the wavefunction) But to answer what you meant to ask, the wavefunction collapse is believed to be instantaneous in the entangled systems.

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

I know the article mentions that entanglement of atoms will allow transfer of quantum information, but I'm ashamed to say that despite my physics degree I can't figure out how they're going to transfer, say, the result of a quantum computation onto an already-entangled atom without breaking the entanglement link. (university was the last time I looked at any QM though, so I'm a bit rusty on the specifics) Maybe they mean doing so during the entanglement process, in which case the benefit is that you now have two particles holding the wave function of the result (or rather a related one holding the same information), and being atoms, they could represent the quantum equivalent of mass storage. I think it's safe to say they're well over a decade away from that, though.

No information is transmitted. It's like this with every article about entanglement.

If I have a red chip and a black chip and I mail one to you and one to your friend in New York then as soon you open your envelope and see a red chip the information "the envelope in New York contains a black chip" will be "teleported" from New York to your brain. Or not.

The teleportation requires a classical, light speed signal to instruct the information recipients which type of measurement to perform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation

michael_nielsen is really the guy to ask. He "wrote the book":

http://books.google.com/books?id=66TgFp2YqrAC&dq=Nielsen...