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An especially counter-intuitive feature of quantum mechanics is that a single event can exist in a state of superposition—happening both here and there, or both today and tomorrow.

Such superpositions are hard to create, as they are destroyed if any kind of information about the place and time of the event leaks into the surrounding—and even if nobody actually records this information. But when superpositions do occur, they lead to observations that are very different from that of classical physics, raising questions that spill over into our very understanding of space and time.

Scientists from EPFL, MIT, and CEA Saclay, publishing in Science Advances, demonstrate a state of vibration that exists simultaneously at two different times, and provide evidence of this quantum superposition by measuring the strongest class of quantum correlations between light beams that interact with the vibration.

A team of scientists at Freie Universität Berlin has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) method for calculating the ground state of the Schrödinger equation in quantum chemistry. The goal of quantum chemistry is to predict chemical and physical properties of molecules based solely on the arrangement of their atoms in space, avoiding the need for resource-intensive and time-consuming laboratory experiments. In principle, this can be achieved by solving the Schrödinger equation, but in practice this is extremely difficult.

Up to now, it has been impossible to find an exact solution for arbitrary molecules that can be efficiently computed. But the team at Freie Universität has developed a deep learning method that can achieve an unprecedented combination of accuracy and computational efficiency. AI has transformed many technological and scientific areas, from computer vision to materials science. “We believe that our approach may significantly impact the future of quantum chemistry,” says Professor Frank Noé, who led the team effort. The results were published in the reputed journal Nature Chemistry.

Central to both quantum chemistry and the Schrödinger equation is the wave function —a mathematical object that completely specifies the behavior of the electrons in a molecule. The wave function is a high-dimensional entity, and it is therefore extremely difficult to capture all the nuances that encode how the individual electrons affect each other. Many methods of quantum chemistry in fact give up on expressing the wave function altogether, instead attempting only to determine the energy of a given molecule. This however requires approximations to be made, limiting the prediction quality of such methods.

Quantum mechanics has an exciting feature: a single event can exist in a state of superposition – happening bothhereandthere, or bothtodayandtomorrow.

Such superposition is quite challenging to create as they are easily destroyed if any information about the event’s place and time leaks into the surrounding – and even if nobody records this information. Once superposition is created, they lead to observations that are very different from that of classical physics, questioning down to our very understanding of space and time.

Continue reading “A state of vibration that exists simultaneously at two different times” »

Fast, ultra-bright photon source brings scalable quantum photonics within reach. Super-fast quantum computers and communication devices could revolutionize countless aspects of our lives — but first, researchers need a fast, efficient source of the entangled pairs of photons such systems use to tra.

THE FINANCE industry has had a long and profitable relationship with computing. It was an early adopter of everything from mainframe computers to artificial intelligence (see timeline). For most of the past decade more trades have been done at high frequency by complex algorithms than by humans. Now big banks have their eyes on quantum computing, another cutting-edge technology.

A fundamentally new kind of computing will shake up finance—the question is when.

Finance & economics Dec 19th 2020 edition.

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The crystalline solid BaTiS₃ (barium titanium sulfide) is terrible at conducting heat, and it turns out that a wayward titanium atom that exists in two places at the same time is to blame.

The discovery, made by researchers from Caltech, USC, and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), was published on November 27 in the journal Nature Communications. It provides a fundamental atomic-level insight into an unusual thermal property that has been observed in several materials. The work is of particular interest to researchers who are exploring the potential use of crystalline solids with poor thermal conductivity in thermoelectric applications, in which heat is directly converted into electric energy and vice versa.

“We have found that quantum mechanical effects can play a huge role in setting the thermal transport properties of materials even under familiar conditions like room temperature,” says Austin Minnich, professor of mechanical engineering and applied physics at Caltech and co-corresponding author of the Nature Communications paper.

The journey to see future technology starts in 2022, when Elon Musk and SpaceX send the first Starship to Mars — beginning the preparations for the arrival of the first human explorers.

We see the evolution of space exploration, from NASA’s Artemis mission, humans landing on Mars, and the interplanetary internet system going online. To the launch of the Starshot Alpha Centauri program, and quantum computers designing plants that can survive on Mars.

Continue reading “TIMELAPSE OF FUTURE TECH: From 2022 — 4000+” »

Scientists at Fermilab in the U.S. have demonstrated, for the first time, sustained and long-distance teleportation of qubits of photons with fidelity greater than 90%.

New research, published in Nature, has measured highly sought-after Majorana quantum states. A team of theoretical and experimental physicists have designed a new ultra-thin material that they have used to create elusive quantum states. Called one-dimensional Majorana zero energy modes, these quantum states could have a huge impact for quantum computing.