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German researchers hoping to be the first to successfully measure quantum flickering directly in a completely empty vacuum are setting their sights on 2024.

If successful, the first-of-their-kind experiments are expected to either confirm the existence of quantum energy in the vacuum, a core concept of quantum electrodynamics (QED), or potentially result in the discovery of previously unknown laws of nature.

Quantum Flickering, Ghost Particles, and Energy in the Vacuum.

Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) is a cryptographic tool that allows for the verification of validity between mutually untrusted parties without disclosing additional information. Non-interactive zero-knowledge proof (NIZKP) is a variant of ZKP with the feature of not requiring multiple information exchanges. Therefore, NIZKP is widely used in the fields of digital signature, blockchain, and identity authentication.

Since it is difficult to implement a true random number generator, deterministic pseudorandom number algorithms are often used as a substitute. However, this method has potential security vulnerabilities. Therefore, how to obtain true random numbers has become the key to improving the security of NIZKP.

In a study published in PNAS, a research team led by Prof. Pan Jianwei and Prof. Zhang Qiang from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the collaborators, realized a set of random number beacon public services with device-independent quantum as entropy sources and post-quantum cryptography as identity authentication.

Quantum advantage is the milestone the field of quantum computing is fervently working toward, where a quantum computer can solve problems that are beyond the reach of the most powerful non-quantum, or classical, computers.

Quantum refers to the scale of atoms and molecules where the laws of physics as we experience them break down and a different, counterintuitive set of laws apply. Quantum computers take advantage of these strange behaviors to solve problems.

There are some types of problems that are impractical for classical computers to solve, such as cracking state-of-the-art encryption algorithms. Research in recent decades has shown that quantum computers have the potential to solve some of these problems.

By using a special combination of laser beams as a very fast stirrer, RIKEN physicists have created multiple vortices in a quantum photonic system and tracked their evolution. This system could be used to explore exotic new physics related to the emergence of quantum states from vortex matter. The research is published in the journal Nano Letters.

In principle, if you were to swim in a pool filled with a superfluid, a single stroke would be all you need to swim an infinite number of laps. That’s because, unlike normal fluids like water, superfluids have no resistance to motion below a certain velocity.

Superfluids also behave weirdly when stirred. “If you stir a bucket of water, you typically get just one big vortex,” explains Michael Fraser of the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science. “But when you rotate a superfluid, you initially create one vortex. And when you rotate it faster, you get progressively more and more vortices of precisely the same size.”

Silicon photonics (SiPh), the manufacturing of integrated photonics on CMOS platform, has been a buzzword in the recent two years, given the technology’s promising prospect to deliver a faster, securer and more efficient solution to data centers increasingly burdened by the ever-growing transmission demand of AI. However, the potential of silicon photonics is not confined to the realm of conventional computing and communication.

Carlos Bravo-Prieto1,2,3, Ryan LaRose4, M. Cerezo1,5, Yigit Subasi6, Lukasz Cincio1, and Patrick J. Coles1

1Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87,545, USA. 2 Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain. 3 Institut de Ciències del Cosmos, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. 4 Department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering & Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48,823, USA. 5 Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA 6 Computer, Computational and Statistical Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87,545, USA

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Nvidia’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock has rallied about 1,110% over the past five years, turning it into the world’s first trillion-dollar chipmaker. A large portion of that rally was fueled by the explosive growth of the artificial intelligence (AI) market, which drove more companies to buy Nvidia’s high-end data center chips for processing AI tasks.

Nvidia might still have room to run, but it’s asking a lot for a $1.2 trillion company to generate even bigger multibagger gains. Therefore, many investors are already likely seeking out the “next Nvidia” — a company that is exposed to the same secular AI tailwinds but has more upside potential. Could the quantum computing company IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) check all the right boxes?

Unlike traditional computers, which process data with binary “bits” of zeros and ones, quantum computers can store zeros and ones simultaneously in “qubits” to process data at much faster rates. However, quantum computing systems are also much larger, more expensive, and more prone to making mistakes than traditional computers.