Heads or tails? If we toss two coins into the air, the result of one coin toss has nothing to do with the result of the other. Coins are independent objects. In the world of quantum physics, things are different: Quantum particles can be entangled, in which case they can no longer be regarded as independent individual objects, they can only…
Category: Quantum Physics
Lack of symmetry in qubits can’t fix errors in quantum computing, might explain matter/antimatter
A team of quantum theorists seeking to cure a basic problem with quantum annealing computers—they have to run at a relatively slow pace to operate properly—found something intriguing instead. While probing how quantum annealers perform when operated faster than desired, the team unexpectedly discovered a new effect that may account for the imbalanced distribution of matter and antimatter in the universe…
Researchers create ‘beautiful marriage’ of quantum enemies
Cornell University scientists have identified a new contender when it comes to quantum materials for computing and low-temperature electronics. …
Magnetic effect without a magnet
Electric current is deflected by a magnetic field—in conducting materials, this leads to the so-called Hall effect. This effect is often used to measure magnetic fields. A surprising discovery has now been made at TU Wien, in collaboration with scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland), McMater University (Canada), and Rice University (U.S.): an exotic metal made of cerium, bismuth and…
A speed limit also applies in the quantum world
Even in the world of the smallest particles with their own special rules, things cannot proceed infinitely fast. Physicists at the University of Bonn have now shown what the speed limit is for complex quantum operations. The study also involved scientists from MIT, the universities of Hamburg, Cologne and Padua, and the Jülich Research Center. The results are important for the…
CSI Solid-State: The fingerprints of quantum effects
In solid-state physics, the precise interactions of electrons are analyzed through meticulous detective work, ultimately to gain a better understanding of fundamental physical phenomena. …
Quantum computing: When ignorance is wanted
Quantum computers promise not only to outperform classical machines in certain important tasks, but also to maintain the privacy of data processing. The secure delegation of computations has been an increasingly important issue since the possibility of utilizing cloud computing and cloud networks. Of particular interest is the ability to exploit quantum technology that allows for unconditional security, meaning that no…
Blueprint for fault-tolerant qubits
Building a universal quantum computer is a challenging task because of the fragility of quantum bits, or qubits for short. To deal with this problem, various types of error correction have been developed. Conventional methods do this by active correction techniques. In contrast, researchers led by Prof. David DiVincenzo from Forschungszentrum Jülich and RWTH Aachen University, together with partners from the…
D-Wave demonstrates performance advantage in quantum simulation of exotic magnetism
D-Wave Systems Inc. today published a milestone study in collaboration with scientists at Google, demonstrating a computational performance advantage, increasing with both simulation size and problem hardness, to over 3 million times that of corresponding classical methods. Notably, this work was achieved on a practical application with real-world implications, simulating the topological phenomena behind the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics. This…
Quantum collaboration gives new gravity to the mysteries of the universe
Scientists have used cutting-edge research in quantum computation and quantum technology to pioneer a radical new approach to determining how our Universe works at its most fundamental level. …