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Category: quantum physics – Page 2

Collaboration of elementary particles: How teamwork among photon pairs overcomes quantum errors

Some things are easier to achieve if you’re not alone. As researchers from the University of Rostock, Germany have shown, this very human insight also applies to the most fundamental building blocks of nature.

At its very core, quantum mechanics postulates that everything is made out of elementary particles, which cannot be split up into even smaller units. This made Ph.D. candidate Vera Neef, first author of the recent publication “Pairing particles into holonomies,” wonder: “What can two particles only accomplish if they work as a team? Can they jointly achieve something, that is impossible for one particle alone?”

Software allows scientists to simulate nanodevices on a supercomputer

From computers to smartphones, from smart appliances to the internet itself, the technology we use every day only exists thanks to decades of improvements in the semiconductor industry, that have allowed engineers to keep miniaturizing transistors and fitting more and more of them onto integrated circuits, or microchips. It’s the famous Moore’s scaling law, the observation—rather than an actual law—that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit tends to double roughly every two years.

The current growth of artificial intelligence, robotics and cloud computing calls for more powerful chips made with even smaller transistors, which at this point means creating components that are only a few nanometers (or millionths of millimeters) in size. At that scale, classical physics is no longer enough to predict how the device will function, because, among other effects, electrons get so close to each other that quantum interactions between them can hugely affect the performance of the device.

AI makes quantum field theories computable

An old puzzle in particle physics has been solved: How can quantum field theories be best formulated on a lattice to optimally simulate them on a computer? The answer comes from AI.

Quantum field theories are the foundation of modern physics. They tell us how particles behave and how their interactions can be described. However, many complicated questions in particle physics cannot be answered simply with pen and paper, but only through extremely complex quantum field theory computer simulations.

This presents exceptionally complex problems: Quantum field theories can be formulated in different ways on a computer. In principle, all of them yield the same physical predictions—but in radically different ways. Some variants are computationally completely unusable, inaccurate, or inefficient, while others are surprisingly practical. For decades, researchers have been searching for the optimal way to embed quantum theories in computer simulations. Now, a team from TU Wien, together with teams from the U.S. and Switzerland, has shown that artificial intelligence can bring about tremendous progress in this area. Their paper is published in Physical Review Letters.

Establishing a new QM/MM design principle based on electronic-state responses

A research team has proposed a new design principle for QM/MM (quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics) simulations. The approach enables objective and automatic determination of the quantum-mechanical region based on electronic-state changes, addressing a long-standing challenge in multiscale molecular simulations.

The researchers included Professor Hirotoshi Mori (Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Chuo University), together with Nichika Ozawa (first-year Ph.D. student at Ochanomizu University) and Assistant Professor Nahoko Kuroki of Ochanomizu University.

The findings are published in the journal Advanced Science as a cover article.

Superconducting nanowire memory array achieves significantly lower error rate

Quantum computers, systems that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, will require faster and energy-efficient memory components, which will allow them to perform well on complex tasks. Superconducting memories are promising memory devices that are made from superconductors, materials that conduct electricity with a resistance of zero when cooled below a critical temperature.

These memory devices could be faster and consume significantly less energy than existing memories based on superconductors. Despite their potential, most existing superconducting memories are prone to errors and are difficult to scale up to create larger systems containing several memory cells.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently developed a new scalable superconducting memory that is based on nanowires, one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures with unique optoelectronic properties. This memory, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, was found to be less prone to errors than many other superconducting nanowire-based memories introduced in the past.

Heisenberg-limited Quantum Sensing Achieves Noise Resilience Via Indefinite-Causal-Order Error Correction

The research extends beyond theoretical analysis by outlining a feasible experimental implementation using integrated photonics. This includes a detailed description of the required optical components and control sequences for realising the ICO gate and performing the quantum sensing measurements. By leveraging the advantages of integrated photonics, the proposed scheme offers a pathway towards compact and scalable quantum sensors with enhanced performance characteristics. The findings pave the way for practical applications in fields such as precision metrology, biomedical imaging, and materials science.

Indefinite Causal Order for Real-Time Error Correction

Realistic noisy devices present significant challenges to quantum technologies. Quantum error correction (QEC) offers a potential solution, but its implementation in quantum sensing is limited by the need for prior noise characterisation, restrictive signal, noise compatibility conditions, and measurement-based syndrome extraction requiring global control. Researchers have now introduced an ICO-based QEC protocol, representing the first application of indefinite causal order (ICO) to QEC. By coherently integrating auxiliary controls and noisy evolution within an indefinite causal order, the resulting noncommutative interference allows an auxiliary system to herald and correct errors in real time.

Can Science Explain Everything? — Sean Carroll

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Sean Carroll is an American theoretical physicist who specializes in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and the philosophy of science.

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Breakthrough laser technique holds quantum matter in stable packets

For the first time, physicists have generated and observed stable bright matter-wave solitons with attractive interactions within a grid of laser light.

In the quantum world, atoms usually travel as waves that spread out, but solitons stay concentrated in one spot. They have been created before in open space, but this is the first time they have been stabilized inside a repeating laser structure using attractive forces. This development gives scientists a new way to hold and guide clusters of atoms, a key requirement for developing future quantum technologies.

The research is published in a paper in Physical Review Letters.

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