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More information on the time crystals to simulate time travel.

Two more teams of researchers have found ways to create time crystals, lattices that repeat not in space but in time, breaking time-translation symmetry.

Though applications are unclear, the research could help us better understand quantum properties and solve the problem of quantum memory associated with quantum computing. Time crystals repeat their atomic structure in time. At the very least, they are a contradiction.

Continue reading “Scientists have confirmed a brand new form of matter: time crystals” »

Awesome! More news on the time crystals.

The source of time travel speculation lies in the fact that our best physical theories seem to contain no prohibitions on traveling backward through time. The feat should be possible based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes gravity as the warping of spacetime by energy and matter. An extremely powerful gravitational field, such as that produced by a spinning black hole, could in principle profoundly warp the fabric of existence so that spacetime bends back on itself. This would create a “closed timelike curve,” or CTC, a loop that could be traversed to travel back in time.

Continue reading “Physicists Simulate Sending Particles of Light Into the Past, Strengthening the Case that Time Travel Is Possible” »

In Brief

• Two more teams of researchers have found ways to create time crystals, lattices that repeat not in space but in time, breaking time-translation symmetry.
• Though applications are unclear, the research could help us better understand quantum properties and solve the problem of quantum memory associated with quantum computing.

Time crystals are strange. At the very least, they are a contradiction. A time crystal is quantum phenomenon that demonstrates movement while remaining in its ground, or lowest energy, state. Essentially a non-equilibrium form of matter, time crystals are lattices that repeat not in space but in time, breaking time-translation symmetry.

When the idea of a time crystal was proposed in 2012 by physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, it was only a theoretical possibility that would challenge many of the laws of physics. Then, in October 2016, a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) managed to make a “floquet time crystal.”

Continue reading “Quantum Breakthrough: Physicists Have Once More Created Time Crystals” »

Another ISP going QC?

News this week included AT&T’s network virtualization, a quantum 2000Q, SIPconnect updates, Comcast cellular plans, and a fix for WebEx.

Particle physics is an interesting and complicated field of study. Its theoretical framework, the Standard Model, was developed during the second half of the twentieth century and it opened he possibility to explaining the behavior of the basic blocks of the Universe. It also classified all the particles, from the electron (discovered in 1897) to the Higgs Boson (found in 2012). It is not pretentious to claim that it is one of the most successful theories in Science.

Unfortunately, the Standard Model is also a very difficult theory to handle. By using an analytic approach many problems cannot be solved and computational methods require a huge computational power. Most of the simulations about this theory are performed in supercomputers and they have severe limitations. For instance, the mass of the proton can be calculated by the use of a technique called Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (lattice QCD), but even using a supercomputer of the Blue Gene type the error was around 2% . This is a huge achievement that shows the utility of the theory, but it is also a signal about the necessity of developing new numerical tools to handle this kind of calculations.

One potential solution to this problem is to use quantum systems in order to perform the simulations. This idea is at the core of the field of quantum computing and it was first proposed by one of the pioneers in the study of particle physics, Richard Feynman . Feynman’s idea is easy to explain. Quantum systems are very difficult to simulate by the use of ordinary classical computers but by using quantum systems we can simulate different quantum systems. If we have a quantum system that we cannot control but we can mimic its dynamics to a friendly quantum system we have solved the problem. We can just manipulate the second system and infer the results to the first one.

Continue reading “Simulating particle physics in a quantum computer” »

Recently, surprising physical effects were observed using special microscopic waveguides for light. Such “photonic structures” currently are revolutionizing the fields of optics and photonics, and have opened up the new research area of “Chiral Quantum Optics”. Physicists from Copenhagen, Innsbruck, and Vienna, who are leading figures in this field, have now written an overview on the topic which just appeared in the scientific journal “Nature”.

What one learns at school is that light oscillates under a right angle (transversal) with respect to its direction of propagation. Among experts, however, it was already known that light behaves differently when it is confined strongly in the transversal plane using so-called “photonic structures”. In particular, this is the case for special ultra-thin glass fibers which have a diameter of only a few hundred nanometers (one nanometer is a millionth part of a millimeter) and which are thereby smaller than the wavelength of light. Also waveguides based on so-called “photonic crystals” (two-dimensional structures with periodically arranged holes) can confine light in this way.

In this situation, the light also oscillates along its propagation direction (longitudinal). The combination of transversal and longitudinal oscillation leads to a rotating electric field which physicist call circular polarization. Without the spatial confinement, the electric field associated with circularly polarized light behaves like the propeller of an aircraft whose axis is parallel to the direction of propagation. “However, in narrow photonic waveguides, the electric field of the light resembles the rotor of a helicopter,” explains Arno Rauschenbeutel from the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology at the Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics of TU Wien, Austria. Here, the spin of the light points along the axis of the rotor and is therefore oriented perpendicular to the propagation direction of the light.

Continue reading “Chiral Quantum Optics: A New Research Field with Bright Perspectives” »

A discussion about Simulation theory, quantum mechanics and Super Mario!

Futurists Keith Comito, Gray Scott, Luis Arana, and Zach Waldman talk about the simulation theory as part of the #FuturistSessions at the Soho House New York. Discussions include quantum mechanics, mathematical realism vs mathematical fictionalism, the Matrix, Pacman, and Mario!

Continue reading “The Futurist Sessions: Simulation Theory — ft. Keith Comito, Gray Scott, Luis Arana, and Zac Waldman” »

Bringing us one step closer to a quantum Internet.

Advanced photonic nanostructures are well on their way to revolutionising quantum technology for quantum networks based on light. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have now developed the first building blocks needed to construct complex quantum photonic circuits for quantum networks. This rapid development in quantum networks is highlighted in an article in the journal Nature.

Quantum technology based on light (photons) is called quantum photonics, while electronics is based on electrons. Photons (light particles) and electrons behave differently at the quantum level. A quantum entity is the smallest unit in the microscopic world. For example, photons are the fundamental constituent of light and electrons of electric current. Electrons are so-called fermions and can easily be isolated to conduct current one electron at a time. In contrast photons are bosons, which prefer to bunch together. But since information for quantum communication based on photonics is encoded in a single photon, it is necessary to emit and send them one at a time.