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Physicists’ latest achievement with neutral atoms paves the way for new quantum computer designs.

In the quest to develop quantum computers, physicists have taken several different paths. For instance, Google recently reported that their prototype quantum computer might have made a specific calculation faster than a classical computer. Those efforts relied on a strategy that involves superconducting materials, which are materials that, when chilled to ultracold temperatures, conduct electricity with zero resistance. Other quantum computing strategies involve arrays of charged or neutral atoms.

Now, a team of quantum physicists at Caltech has made strides in work that uses a more complex class of neutral atoms called the alkaline-earth atoms, which reside in the second column of the periodic table. These atoms, which include magnesium, calcium, and strontium, have two electrons in their outer regions, or shells. Previously, researchers who experimented with neutral atoms had focused on elements located in the first column of the periodic table, which have just one electron in their outer shells.

The quantum properties underlying crystal formation can be replicated and investigated with the help of ultracold atoms. A team led by Dr. Axel U. J. Lode from the University of Freiburg’s Institute of Physics has now described in the journal Physical Review Letters how the use of dipolar atoms enables even the realization and precise measurement of structures that have not yet been observed in any material. The theoretical study was a collaboration involving scientists from the University of Freiburg, the University of Vienna and the Technical University of Vienna in Austria, and the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India.

Crystals are ubiquitous in nature. They are formed by many different materials—from mineral salts to heavy metals like bismuth. Their structures emerge because a particular regular ordering of atoms or molecules is favorable, because it requires the smallest amount of energy. A cube with one constituent on each of its eight corners, for instance, is a crystal structure that is very common in nature. A crystal’s structure determines many of its physical properties, such as how well it conducts a current or heat or how it cracks and behaves when it is illuminated by light. But what determines these crystal structures? They emerge as a consequence of the quantum properties of and the interactions between their constituents, which, however, are often scientifically hard to understand and also hard measure.

To nevertheless get to the bottom of the quantum properties of the formation of crystal structures, scientists can simulate the process using Bose-Einstein condensates—trapped ultracold atoms cooled down to temperatures close to absolute zero or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius. The atoms in these highly artificial and highly fragile systems are extremely well under control.

A team of researchers with Google’s AI Quantum team (working with unspecified collaborators) has conducted the largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their work and why they believe it was a step forward in quantum computing. Xiao Yuan of Stanford University has written a Perspective piece outlining the potential benefits of quantum computer use to conduct chemical simulations and the work by the team at AI Quantum, published in the same journal issue.

Developing an ability to predict chemical processes by simulating them on computers would be of great benefit to chemists—currently, they do most of it through trial and error. Prediction would open up the door to the development of a wide range of new materials with still unknown properties. Sadly, current computers lack the exponential scaling that would be required for such work. Because of that, chemists have been hoping quantum computers will one day step in to take on the role.

Current quantum computer technology is not yet ready to take on such a challenge, of course, but computer scientists are hoping to get them there sometime in the near future. In the meantime, big companies like Google are investing in research geared toward using quantum computers once they mature. In this new effort, the team at AI Quantum focused their efforts on simulating a simple chemical process—the Hartree-Fock approximation of a real chemical system—in this particular case, a diazene molecule undergoing a reaction with hydrogen atoms, resulting in an altered configuration.

Nearby supernova explosions shape the interstellar medium. Ejecta, containing fresh nucleosynthetic products, may traverse the solar system as a transient passage, or alternatively the solar system may traverse local clouds that may represent isolated remnants of supernova explosions. Such scenarios may modulate the galactic cosmic-ray flux intensity to which Earth is exposed. Varying conditions of the traversed interstellar medium could have impacts on climate and can be imprinted in the terrestrial geological record. Some radionuclides, such as ⁶⁰ Fe, are not produced on Earth or within the solar system in significant quantities. Their existence in deep-sea sediments demonstrates recent production in close-by supernova explosions with a continued influx of ⁶⁰ Fe until today.

Nuclides synthesized in massive stars are ejected into space via stellar winds and supernova explosions. The solar system (SS) moves through the interstellar medium and collects these nucleosynthesis products. One such product is ⁶⁰ Fe, a radionuclide with a half-life of 2.6 My that is predominantly produced in massive stars and ejected in supernova explosions. Extraterrestrial ⁶⁰ Fe has been found on Earth, suggesting close-by supernova explosions ∼2 to 3 and ∼6 Ma. Here, we report on the detection of a continuous interstellar ⁶⁰ Fe influx on Earth over the past ∼33,000 y. This time period coincides with passage of our SS through such interstellar clouds, which have a significantly larger particle density compared to the local average interstellar medium embedding our SS for the past few million years. The interstellar ⁶⁰ Fe was extracted from five deep-sea sediment samples and accelerator mass spectrometry was used for single-atom counting.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ksMXbhftBbM

California company NDB says its nano-diamond batteries will absolutely upend the energy equation, acting like tiny nuclear generators. They will blow any energy density comparison out of the water, lasting anywhere from a decade to 28,000 years without ever needing a charge. They will offer higher power density than lithium-ion. They will be nigh-on indestructible and totally safe in an electric car crash. And in some applications, like electric cars, they stand to be considerably cheaper than current lithium-ion packs despite their huge advantages.

The heart of each cell is a small piece of recycled nuclear waste. NDB uses graphite nuclear reactor parts that have absorbed radiation from nuclear fuel rods and have themselves become radioactive. Untreated, it’s high-grade nuclear waste: dangerous, difficult and expensive to store, with a very long half-life.

Continue reading “Nano-diamond self-charging batteries could disrupt energy as we know it” »

A simplified explanation of the higgs mechanism.

Scientists on an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider see massive W particles emerging from collisions with electromagnetic fields. How can this happen?

The CERN Control Centre (CCC) is abuzz once again. The second long shutdown (LS2) has come to an end for CERN’s newest accelerator – Linac 4 – and the accelerator complex’s slow awakening from a two-year repair-and-recuperation hibernation has begun. The three-week machine-development run until mid-August saw low-energy beams of negative hydrogen ions (H⁻) fly through the first part of the accelerator for the first time since it was connected to the PS Booster. On August 20, the first beams at the nominal energy of 160 MeV were accelerated through the entire machine and into a dedicated beam dump located at the end of the linac. Over the coming months, the brand-new accelerator will finish being commissioned and will be made ready to deliver various beams to the PS Booster in December.

CERN is famous for its circular accelerators, in particular the 27-kilometer-circumference Large Hadron Collider. But the protons that circulate in these bigger machines first undergo acceleration in a humble and relatively small linear accelerator, or linac. In 2018, Linac 2, which had fed protons to CERN’s accelerator complex since 1978, was finally retired, with the 86-meter-long Linac 4 ready to take its place. But a new machine comes with new challenges for the team operating it.

Continue reading “CERN’s Newest Accelerator Awakens: Linac 4 Has Taken Over As the First Accelerator in LHC Injection Chain” »

The particle, which has been called X(2900), was detected by analyzing all the data LHCb has recorded so far from collisions at CERNs Large Hadron Collider.

The LHCb experiment at CERN has developed a penchant for finding exotic combinations of quarks, the elementary particles that come together to give us composite particles such as the more familiar proton and neutron. In particular, LHCb has observed several tetraquarks, which, as the name suggests, are made of four quarks (or rather two quarks and two antiquarks). Observing these unusual particles helps scientists advance our knowledge of the strong force, one of the four known fundamental forces in the universe. At a CERN seminar held virtually on August 12, LHCb announced the first signs of an entirely new kind of tetraquark with a mass of 2.9 GeV/c²: the first such particle with only one charm quark.

First predicted to exist in 1964, scientists have observed six kinds of quarks (and their antiquark counterparts) in the laboratory: up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom. Since quarks cannot exist freely, they group to form composite particles: three quarks or three antiquarks form “baryons” like the proton, while a quark and an antiquark form “mesons.”