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Category: quantum physics – Page 33

A team of physicists led by The City College of New York’s Lia Krusin-Elbaum has developed a novel technique that uses hydrogen cations (H+) to manipulate relativistic electronic bandstructures in a magnetic Weyl semimetal—a topological material where electrons mimic massless particles called Weyl fermions. These particles are distinguished by their chirality or “handedness” linked to their spin and momentum.

In the magnetic material MnSb₂Te₄, researchers unveiled a fascinating ability to “tune” and enhance the chirality of electronic transport by introducing , reshaping on-demand the energy landscapes—called Weyl nodes—within the material. This finding could open a breadth of new quantum device platforms for harnessing emergent topological states for novel chiral nano-spintronics and fault-tolerant quantum computing. Entitled “Transport chirality generated by a tunable tilt of Weyl nodes in a van der Waals topological magnet,” the study appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The tuning of Weyl nodes with H+ heals the system’s (Mn-Te) bond disorder and lowers the internode scattering. In this process—which The City College team tests in the Krusin Lab using angularly-resolved electrical transport—electrical charges move differently when the in-plane is rotated clockwise or counterclockwise, generating desirable low-dissipation currents. The reshaped Weyl states feature a doubled Curie temperature and a strong angular transport chirality synchronous with a rare field-antisymmetric longitudinal resistance—a low-field tunable ‘chiral switch’ that is rooted in the interplay of topological Berry curvature, chiral anomaly and a hydrogen-mediated form of Weyl nodes.

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Researchers have successfully simulated the non-Hermitian skin effect in a two-dimensional quantum system, a first in the field.

This groundbreaking work, which uses ultracold fermions, reveals potential for a deeper understanding of quantum systems interacting with their environment, paving the way for future discoveries in quantum physics and information.

Groundbreaking Quantum Simulation Achievement.

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UNSW engineers have demonstrated a well-known quantum thought experiment in the real world. Their findings deliver a new and more robust way to perform quantum computations—and they have important implications for error correction, one of the biggest obstacles standing between them and a working quantum computer.

Quantum mechanics has puzzled scientists and philosophers for more than a century. One of the most famous quantum thought experiments is that of the “Schrödinger’s cat”—a cat whose life or death depends on the decay of a radioactive atom.

According to , unless the atom is directly observed, it must be considered to be in a superposition—that is, being in multiple states at the same time—of decayed and not decayed. This leads to the troubling conclusion that the cat is in a superposition of dead and alive.

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In a groundbreaking experiment, UNSW researchers successfully applied the Schrödinger’s cat concept using an antimony atom to enhance quantum computations.

This method significantly improves the reliability of quantum data processing and error correction, potentially accelerating the advent of practical quantum computing.

Understanding quantum mechanics through schrödinger’s cat.

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A tiny cooling device can automatically reset malfunctioning components of a quantum computer. Its performance suggests that manipulating heat could also enable other autonomous quantum devices.

Quantum computers aren’t yet fully practical because they make too many errors. In fact, if qubits – key components of this type of computer – accidentally heat up and become too energetic, they can end up in an erroneous state before the calculation even begins. One way to “reset” the qubits to their correct states is to cool them down.

Image: chalmers university of technology, lovisa håkansson.

A tiny quantum “refrigerator” can ensure that a quantum computer’s calculations start off error-free – without requiring oversight or even new hardware.

Continue reading “Quantum computers get automatic error correction for the first time” | >

Diamond, often celebrated for its unmatched hardness and transparency, has emerged as an exceptional material for high-power electronics and next-generation quantum optics. Diamond can be engineered to be as electrically conductive as a metal, by introducing impurities such as the element boron.

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have now discovered another interesting property in diamonds with added , known as boron-doped diamonds.

Their findings could pave the way for new types of biomedical and quantum optical devices—faster, more efficient, and capable of processing information in ways that classical technologies cannot. Their results are published in Nature Communications.

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Researchers at the university of pennsylvania.

The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) is a prestigious private Ivy League research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin, Penn is one of the oldest universities in the United States. It is renowned for its strong emphasis on interdisciplinary education and its professional schools, including the Wharton School, one of the leading business schools globally. The university offers a wide range of undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across various fields such as law, medicine, engineering, and arts and sciences. Penn is also known for its significant contributions to research, innovative teaching methods, and active campus life, making it a hub of academic and extracurricular activity.

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The once shiny, exciting use cases for quantum technology may turn out to be pretty mundane if a small, but courageous band of researchers proves their theories correct. After all, using quantum computers to find new drug treatments, navigate the world without global positioning systems, and optimize complex portfolios may seem downright boring compared to using them to explore the myriad of questions that surround the hard problems of consciousness. Questions like: what the heck even is consciousness — and, does it have a connection to quantum mechanics? And, can quantum computing help make robots conscious — and should we make them conscious?

Tough questions, for sure, but here we’ll introduce a few researchers and entrepreneurs who are heading in that direction right now and leaning into what might turn out to be the ultimate quantum computing use case of all time: consciousness.

Hartmut Neven, a physicist and computational neuroscientist leading Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, believes quantum computing could help explore consciousness. Speaking to New Scientist, Neven outlined experiments and theories suggesting consciousness might emerge from quantum phenomena, such as entanglement and superposition, within the human brain. He proposes leveraging quantum computers to test these ideas, potentially expanding our understanding of how the mind interacts with the physical world.

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Quantum computers may soon dramatically enhance our ability to solve problems modeled by nonreversible Markov chains, according to a study published on the pre-print server arXiv.

The researchers from Qubit Pharmaceuticals and Sorbonne University, demonstrated that quantum algorithms could achieve exponential speedups in sampling from such chains, with the potential to surpass the capabilities of classical methods. These advances — if fully realized — have a range of implications for fields like drug discovery, machine learning and financial modeling.

Markov chains are mathematical frameworks used to model systems that transition between various states, such as stock prices or molecules in motion. Each transition is governed by a set of probabilities, which defines how likely the system is to move from one state to another. Reversible Markov chains — where the probability of moving from, let’s call them, state A to state B equals the probability of moving from B to A — have traditionally been the focus of computational techniques. However, many real-world systems are nonreversible, meaning their transitions are biased in one direction, as seen in certain biological and chemical processes.

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Protons and other subatomic particles that are subject to the strong nuclear force have a complex structure that involves even more fundamental constituents called quarks and gluons. These quarks and gluons bind under the influence of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). QCD is the theory of strong interaction of quarks and the role of color symmetry.

However, the mechanisms that lead to and combining to form the particles we see in nature are very mysterious and poorly understood. For example, virtual quarks and gluons constantly appear and disappear within our current picture of the dynamics in the proton. So, which quarks and gluons are actually “in” a proton is a difficult question to answer.

Much of the experimental work related to extracting the quark and gluon structure of protons occurs at existing like the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and in the future at the Electron Ion Collider.

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