Lifeboat Foundation

Excellent write up on a paper submitted to the International Association for Cryptologic Research, by a group of UK and Belgian researchers are offering up a dig-sig scheme to assist in the addressing of Digital signatures (one of the fundamental parts of cryptography) in a post-quantum world. Expect the heat to rise on QC security as China’s launch date nears for the new Quantum Satellite.

Boffins smokin’ idea to share parts of keys to cook quantum-proof crypto.

China and the US; tensions are mounting and China’s new Quantum Satellite is aiding more fuel to the flames.

By: James Holbrooks (UndergroundReporter) Beijing — Only days after completing production of the largest amphibious aircraft ever built, China has just revealed plans to launch the world’s first satellite designed to conduct quantum experiments in space — a move that could one day lead to a highly secure “orbital internet.”

Assuming the initial satellite performs well, as many as 20 additional craft would follow in the effort to create a new category of communications network. Chinese researchers believe their work could ignite a space race as other nations move to refine the technology.

Continue reading “Warning Shots Fired: China Releases Video of Missile Launch, Amps Up Tensions with U.S” »

An elliptical light beam in a nonlinear optical medium pumped by “twisted light” can rotate like an electron around a magnetic field.

Magnetism and rotation have a lot in common. The effect of a magnetic field on a moving charge, the Lorentz force, is formally equivalent to the fictitious force felt by a moving mass in a rotating reference frame, the Coriolis force. For this reason, atomic quantum gases under rotation can be used as quantum simulators of exotic magnetic phenomena for electrons, such as the fractional quantum Hall effect. But there is no direct equivalent of magnetism for photons, which are massless and chargeless. Now, Niclas Westerberg and co-workers at Heriot-Watt University, UK, have shown how to make synthetic magnetic fields for light [1]. They developed a theory that predicts how a light beam in a nonlinear optical medium pumped by “twisted light” will rotate as it propagates, just as an electron will whirl around in a magnetic field. More than that, the light will expand as it goes, demonstrating fluid-like behavior.

D-Wave making music.

A composer seeks to eavesdrop on the illogic at the heart of computing’s next wave.

Quantum physics is the new physics that is pointing to something far greater than the materialistic world that we once believed to be the basis of our existence. Not only is it disproving our original perception of space and time, but it is opening the doors to the possibility of time travel, telepathy, and consciousness creating our reality.

Among the intriguing issues in plasma physics are those surrounding X-ray pulsars—collapsed stars that orbit around a cosmic companion and beam light at regular intervals, like lighthouses in the sky. Physicists want to know the strength of the magnetic field and density of the plasma that surrounds these pulsars, which can be millions of times greater than the density of plasma in stars like the sun.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have developed a theory of plasma waves that can infer these properties in greater detail than in standard approaches. The new research analyzes the plasma surrounding the pulsar by coupling Einstein’s theory of relativity with quantum mechanics, which describes the motion of subatomic particles such as the atomic nuclei—or ions—and electrons in plasma. Supporting this work is the DOE Office of Science.

Quantum field theory

Continue reading “Researchers apply quantum theory and Einstein’s special relativity to plasma physics issues” »

Post-Quantum is a slow-burning, brilliant oddity of a startup. We assess its prospects.

A Chinese satellite launching in August would be the first to bring a worldwide quantum-encrypted communication network to reality.

If biochemists had access to a quantum computer, they could perfectly simulate the properties of new molecules to develop drugs in ways that would take today’s fastest computers decades. A new device takes us closer to providing such a computer. The device successfully traps, detects, and manipulates an ensemble of electrons above the surface of superfluid helium. The system integrates a nanofluidic channel with a superconducting circuit.

Because they are so small, electrons normally interact weakly with electrical signals. The new device, however, gives the electron more time to interact, and it is this setup that makes it possible to build a qubit, the quantum computing equivalent of a bit. Quantum computers could provide the necessary computing power to model extremely large and complex situations in physics, biology, weather systems and many others.

While isolated electrons in a vacuum can store quantum information nearly perfectly, in real materials, the movements of surrounding atoms disturbs them, eventually leading to the loss of information. This work is a step towards realizing isolated, trapped single electrons by taking advantage of the unique relationship existing between electrons and superfluid helium. Electrons will levitate just above the surface of helium, about 10 nanometers away, insensitive to the atomic fluctuations below. While this effect has been known, holding them in a superconducting device structure has not been demonstrated before this work. At the heart of this new technology is a resonator based on circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) architecture, which provides a path to trap electrons above helium and detect the spins of the electrons. Because they are so small, electrons normally interact only very weakly with electrical signals.