A cheap, portable quantum computer, aimed at schools and colleges will be launched later this year.
Category: quantum physics – Page 654
US Labs Paving Way for Quantum Internet
A breakthrough in advanced quantum technology frequently compared to fictional elements of popular science fiction show ‘Star Trek’ could revolutionize everyday life around globe #quantumtechnology
New “Fast Forward” Algorithm Could Unleash the Power of Quantum Computers
Fast-forwarding quantum calculations skips past the time limits imposed by decoherence, which plagues today’s machines.
A new algorithm that fast forwards simulations could bring greater use ability to current and near-term quantum computers, opening the way for applications to run past strict time limits that hamper many quantum calculations.
“Quantum computers have a limited time to perform calculations before their useful quantum nature, which we call coherence, breaks down,” said Andrew Sornborger of the Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and senior author on a paper announcing the research. “With a new algorithm we have developed and tested, we will be able to fast forward quantum simulations to solve problems that were previously out of reach.”
How quantum computers could hack our brains with fake memories like Total Recall
Well, maybe they would be good memories. 😃
Quantum computers, according to experts, will one day be capable of performing incredible calculations and nearly unfathomable feats of logic. In the near future, we know they’ll help us discover new drugs to fight disease and new materials to build with. But the far future potential for these enigmatic machines is as vast as the universe itself.
The realm of classic science fiction is littered with ideas that today’s experts believe lie within the realm of reality – if not today’s reality, then perhaps tomorrow’s quantum computer-laden one. One of those ideas comes straight out of a Paul Verhoeven film from over thirty years ago: Total Recall.
In fairness, the film (we’re talking about the 1990 one starring the former governor of California not the 2012 remake) was based on a short story by Phillip K Dick. But for the purposes of this article we’ll be discussing the movie’s depiction of “Rekall,” a mysterious company portrayed in the film.
Adding or subtracting single quanta of sound
Researchers perform experiments that can add or subtract a single quantum of sound—with surprising results when applied to noisy sound fields.
Quantum mechanics tells us that physical objects can have both wave and particle properties. For instance, a single particle—or quantum—of light is known as a photon, and, in a similar fashion, a single quantum of sound is known as a phonon, which can be thought of as the smallest unit of sound energy.
A team of researchers spanning Imperial College London, University of Oxford, the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Bath, and the Australian National University have performed an experiment that can add or subtract a single phonon to a high-frequency sound field using interactions with laser light.
Scientists Create Quantum System That Stays Operational 10,000 Longer
“With this approach, we don’t try to eliminate noise in the surroundings; instead, we “trick” the system into thinking it doesn’t experience the noise,” first author Kevin Miao, postdoctoral researcher at UChicago, said in the statement.
They used both electromagnetic pulses and a continuous alternating magnetic field to keep the quantum system under control. They then tuned this magnetic field in just such a way, that the rest of the noise was simply tuned out.
“To get a sense of the principle, it’s like sitting on a merry-go-round with people yelling all around you,” Miao explained in the statement. “When the ride is still, you can hear them perfectly, but if you’re rapidly spinning, the noise blurs into a background.”
Quantum Computer Breakthrough: New Blueprint for Better, Faster Qubits
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have put forward a detailed plan of how faster and better defined quantum bits — qubits — can be created. The central elements are magnetic atoms from the class of so-called rare-earth metals, which would be selectively implanted into the crystal lattice of a material. Each of these atoms represents one qubit. The researchers have demonstrated how these qubits can be activated, entangled, used as memory bits, and read out. They have now published their design concept and supporting calculations in the journal PRX Quantum.
On the way to quantum computers, an initial requirement is to create so-called quantum bits or “qubits”: memory bits that can, unlike classical bits, take on not only the binary values of zero and one, but also any arbitrary combination of these states. “With this, an entirely new kind of computation and data processing becomes possible, which for specific applications means an enormous acceleration of computing power,” explains PSI researcher Manuel Grimm, first author of a new paper on the topic of qubits.