How to Make Quantum Computers Way More Stable

Calendar August 2, 2022 | Posted by admin

In new research, scientists have trained atoms to exhibit two forms of time at the same, well, time. While the phenomenon is not bending time away from what you’d expect looking at the clock, the matter shows behaviors from two different time modes, giving it special properties. Scientists believe this odd, double-time phenomenon could represent a new phase of matter.

Researchers from a few American universities, as well as Honeywell quantum-computing spinoff Quantinuum, collaborated on the new paper, which appeared late last month in the journal Nature. The experimental setup is made up of lasers and ytterbium atoms. Ytterbium is a metallic element whose arrangement of electrons makes it unusually suited to respond to laser treatments in a particular area of the wave spectrum. To trigger the new “dynamical topological phase,” scientists first hold ytterbium atoms in place using an electric ion field—like a tiny magnet—then bombard them with the right wavelength of laser to supercool the ytterbium. Broomfield, Colorado-based Quantinuum studies a particular quantum computer that’s made of ten ytterbium atoms in a shared system. It’s these ten atoms, held by the electric fields mentioned above, that do the computing. A group of atoms can be entangled— meaning they’re intrinsically linked into a group that acts as one piece, despite being ten separate pieces. And within that, individual atoms can be tuned to reflect different information.

  • A different pattern of laser pulses could make quantum computers way more stable.New research uses a Fibonacci-inspired, non-repeating sequence to keep qubits spinning.This creates a quasicrystal effect, with support in two dimensions instead of just one.

Think of how we write numbers. In binary, the largest ten-digit number is 1111111111, and that’s just 1,023 total. But you can write ten digits in base 10, our usual counting numbers, and get 9,999,999,999. That’s accomplished by simply increasing the number of possibilities that each digit can dial to from (0, 1) all the way up to  (0, 1, . . . . 8, 9). So what about a system where, theoretically, each of ten atoms could be positioned anywhere on the dial?

If that sounds amazing, you’re not wrong! There are multiple reasons why scientists and industry speculators around the world are watching the field of quantum computers with bated breath. But there’s still a very big catch, and that’s where this research comes in. The atoms in the quantum computer, known as quantum bits, or qubits, are really vulnerable, because we don’t yet have a great way to keep them in the quantum state for long. That’s because of the observer principle in quantum physics: measuring a particle in a quantum state changes, and can even destroy, the quantum state. In this case, that means unhooking all the atoms from the shared yoke of entanglement. And even worse, the “observer” can be anything happening in the complex soup of air and forces and particles all around the quantum computer.

Source: https://www.popularmechanics.com/

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Quantum Computer Can See 16 Different Futures Simultaneously

Calendar April 22, 2019 | Posted by admin

When Mile Gu boots up his new computer, he can see the future. At least, 16 possible versions of it — all at the same time. Gu, an assistant professor of physics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, works in quantum computing. This branch of science uses the weird laws that govern the universe’s smallest particles to help computers calculate more efficiently.

Tiny particles of light can travel in a superposition of many different states at the same time. Researchers used this quantum quirk to design a prototype computer that can predict 16 different futures at once.

Unlike classical computers, which store information as bits (binary digits of either 0 or 1), quantum computers code information into quantum bits, or qubits. These subatomic particles, thanks to the weird laws of quantum mechanics, can exist in a superposition of two different states at the same time.

Just as Schrödinger‘s hypothetical cat was simultaneously dead and alive until someone opened the box, a qubit in a superposition can equal both 0 and 1 until it’s measured. Storing multiple different outcomes into a single qubit could save a ton of memory compared to traditional computers, especially when it comes to making complicated predictions.

In a study published April 9 in the journal Nature Communications, Gu and his colleagues demonstrated this idea using a new quantum simulator that can predict the outcomes of 16 different futures (the equivalent of, say, flipping a coin four times in a row) in a quantum superposition. These possible futures were encoded in a single photon (a quantum particle of light) which moved down multiple paths simultaneously while passing through several sensors. Then, the researchers went one step further, firing two photons side-by-side and tracking how each photon’s potential futures diverged under slightly different conditions.

“It’s sort of like Doctor Strange in the ‘Avengers: Infinity War‘” movie, Gu told Live Science. Before a climactic battle in that film, the clairvoyant doctor looks forward in time to see 14 million different futures, hoping to find the one where the heroes defeat the big baddie. “He does a combined computation of all these possibilities to say, ‘OK, if I changed my decision in this small way, how much will the future change?’ This is the direction our simulation is moving forwards to.”

Source: https://www.livescience.com/

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