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Category: quantum physics – Page 300

New Math Suggests ‘Impossible’ Third Type of Particle Could Exist

Quantum mechanics has long classified particles into just two distinct types: fermions and bosons.

Now physicists from Rice University in the US have found a third type might be possible after all, at least mathematically speaking. Known as a paraparticles, their behavior could imply the existence of elementary particles nobody has ever considered.

“We determined that new types of particles we never knew of before are possible,” says Kaden Hazzard, who with co-author Zhiyuan Wang formulated a theory to demonstrate how objects that weren’t fermions or bosons could exist in physical reality without breaking any known laws.

UConn, NORDITA, and Google Reveal Gravity As Both Friend and Foe of Quantum Technology

The mention of gravity and quantum in the same sentence often elicits discomfort from theoretical physicists, yet the effects of gravity on quantum information systems cannot be ignored. In a recently announced collaboration between the University of Connecticut, Google Quantum AI, and the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA), researchers explored the interplay of these two domains, quantifying the nontrivial effects of gravity on transmon qubits.

Led by Alexander Balatsky of UConn’s Quantum Initiative, along with Google’s Pedram Roushan and NORDITA researchers Patrick Wong and Joris Schaltegger, the study focuses on the gravitational redshift. This phenomenon slightly detunes the energy levels of qubits based on their position in a gravitational field. While negligible for a single qubit, this effect becomes measurable when scaled.

While quantum computers can effectively be protected from electromagnetic radiation, barring any innovative antigravitic devices expansive enough to hold a quantum computer, quantum technology cannot at this point in time be shielded from the effects of gravity. The team demonstrated that gravitational interactions create a universal dephasing channel, disrupting the coherence required for quantum operations. However, these same interactions could also be used to develop highly sensitive gravitational sensors.

“Our research reveals that the same finely tuned qubits engineered to process information can serve as precise sensors—so sensitive, in fact, that future quantum chips may double as practical gravity sensors. This approach is opening a new frontier in quantum technology.”

To explore these effects, the researchers modeled the gravitational redshift’s impact on energy-level splitting in transmon qubits. Gravitational redshift, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, occurs when light or electromagnetic waves traveling away from a massive object lose energy and shift to longer wavelengths. This happens because gravity alters the flow of time, causing clocks closer to a massive object to tick more slowly than those farther away.

Historically, gravitational redshift has played a pivotal role in confirming general relativity and is critical to technologies like GPS, where precise timing accounts for gravitational differences between satellites and the Earth’s surface. In this study, the researchers applied the concept to transmon qubits, modeling how gravitational effects subtly shift their energy states depending on their height in a gravitational field.

Using computational simulations and theoretical models, the team was able to quantify these energy-level shifts. While the effects are negligible for individual qubits, they become significant when scaled to arrays of qubits positioned at varying heights on vertically aligned chips, such as Google’s Sycamore chip.

Continue reading “UConn, NORDITA, and Google Reveal Gravity As Both Friend and Foe of Quantum Technology” | >

Nvidia’s $3K “Digits” GB10 Supercomputer

The mention of gravity and quantum in the same sentence often elicits discomfort from theoretical physicists, yet the effects of gravity on quantum information systems cannot be ignored. In a recently announced collaboration between the University of Connecticut, Google Quantum AI, and the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA), researchers explored the interplay of these two domains, quantifying the nontrivial effects of gravity on transmon qubits.

Led by Alexander Balatsky of UConn’s Quantum Initiative, along with Google’s Pedram Roushan and NORDITA researchers Patrick Wong and Joris Schaltegger, the study focuses on the gravitational redshift. This phenomenon slightly detunes the energy levels of qubits based on their position in a gravitational field. While negligible for a single qubit, this effect becomes measurable when scaled.

While quantum computers can effectively be protected from electromagnetic radiation, barring any innovative antigravitic devices expansive enough to hold a quantum computer, quantum technology cannot at this point in time be shielded from the effects of gravity. The team demonstrated that gravitational interactions create a universal dephasing channel, disrupting the coherence required for quantum operations. However, these same interactions could also be used to develop highly sensitive gravitational sensors.

“Our research reveals that the same finely tuned qubits engineered to process information can serve as precise sensors—so sensitive, in fact, that future quantum chips may double as practical gravity sensors. This approach is opening a new frontier in quantum technology.”

To explore these effects, the researchers modeled the gravitational redshift’s impact on energy-level splitting in transmon qubits. Gravitational redshift, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, occurs when light or electromagnetic waves traveling away from a massive object lose energy and shift to longer wavelengths. This happens because gravity alters the flow of time, causing clocks closer to a massive object to tick more slowly than those farther away.

Historically, gravitational redshift has played a pivotal role in confirming general relativity and is critical to technologies like GPS, where precise timing accounts for gravitational differences between satellites and the Earth’s surface. In this study, the researchers applied the concept to transmon qubits, modeling how gravitational effects subtly shift their energy states depending on their height in a gravitational field.

Using computational simulations and theoretical models, the team was able to quantify these energy-level shifts. While the effects are negligible for individual qubits, they become significant when scaled to arrays of qubits positioned at varying heights on vertically aligned chips, such as Google’s Sycamore chip.

Continue reading “Nvidia’s K “Digits” GB10 Supercomputer” | >

Quantum Is More Than Just Computing

Quantum computing is getting a lot of attention lately — deservedly so. It’s hard not to get excited about the new capabilities that quantum computing could bring. This new generation of computers will solve extremely complex problems by sorting through billions upon billions of wrong answers to arrive at the correct solutions. We could put these capabilities to work designing new medications or optimizing global infrastructure on an enormous scale.

But in the excitement surrounding quantum computing, what often gets lost is that computing is just one element of the larger quantum technologies story. We are entering a new quantum era in which we are learning to manipulate and control the quantum states of matter down to the level of individual particles. This has unlocked a wealth of new possibilities across multiple fields. For instance, by entangling two photons of light, we can generate a communications channel that is impervious to eavesdropping. Or we can put the highly sensitive nature of quantum particles to work detecting phenomena we have never been able to sense before.

We call this new era of innovation Quantum 2.0, distinguishing it from the Quantum 1.0 era of the last 100 years. Quantum 1.0 gave us some of the most remarkable inventions of the 20th century, from the transistor to the laser. But as we transition to Quantum 2.0, we are reconceptualizing the way we communicate and the way we sense the world, as well as the way we compute. What’s more, we’re only just beginning to realize Quantum 2.0’s full potential.

Record cold quantum refrigerator paves way for reliable quantum computers

Quantum computers require extreme cooling to perform reliable calculations. One of the challenges preventing quantum computers from entering society is the difficulty of freezing the qubits to temperatures close to absolute zero.

Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Maryland, U.S., have engineered a new type of refrigerator that can autonomously cool superconducting qubits to record , paving the way for more reliable quantum computation.

Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize fundamental technologies in various sectors of society, with applications in medicine, energy, encryption, AI, and logistics. While the building blocks of a classical computer—bits—can take a value of either 0 or 1, the most common building blocks in quantum computers—qubits—can have a value of 0 and 1 simultaneously.

Mathematical methods point to possibility of particles long thought impossible

From the early days of quantum mechanics, scientists have thought that all particles can be categorized into one of two groups—bosons or fermions—based on their behavior.

However, new research by Rice University physicist Kaden Hazzard and former Rice graduate student Zhiyuan Wang shows the possibility of particles that are neither bosons nor fermions. Their study, published in Nature, mathematically demonstrates the potential existence of paraparticles that have long been thought impossible.

“We determined that new types of particles we never knew of before are possible,” said Hazzard, associate professor of physics and astronomy.

Discovery of new class of particles could take quantum mechanics one step further

Amid the many mysteries of quantum physics, subatomic particles don’t always follow the rules of the physical world. They can exist in two places at once, pass through solid barriers and even communicate across vast distances instantaneously. These behaviors may seem impossible, but in the quantum realm, scientists are exploring an array of properties once thought impossible.

In a new study, physicists at Brown University have now observed a novel class of quantum particles called fractional excitons, which behave in unexpected ways and could significantly expand scientists’ understanding of the .

“Our findings point toward an entirely new class of quantum particles that carry no overall charge but follow unique quantum statistics,” said Jia Li, an associate professor of physics at Brown.

Physicists achieve simulation of non-Hermitian skin effect in 2D with ultracold fermions

A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has achieved a groundbreaking quantum simulation of the non-Hermitian skin effect in two dimensions using ultracold fermions, marking a significant advance in quantum physics research.

Quantum mechanics, which typically considers a well-isolated system from its environment, describes ubiquitous phenomena ranging from electron behavior in solids to information processing in quantum devices. This description typically requires a real-valued observable—specifically, a Hermitian model (Hamiltonian).

The hermiticity of the model, which guarantees conserved energy with real eigenvalues, breaks down when a quantum system exchanges particles and energy with its environment. Such an open quantum system can be effectively described by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, providing crucial insights into , curved space, non-trivial topological phases, and even black holes. Nevertheless, many questions about non-Hermitian quantum dynamics remain unanswered, especially in higher dimensions.

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