Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: quantum physics – Page 281

Unlocking Quantum Secrets With Spin-Squeezing Atomic Entanglement

Researchers have developed methods to entangle large numbers of particles, improving the precision and speed of quantum measurements. These advancements could revolutionize quantum sensors and atomic clocks, with potential applications in fundamental physics research.

Opening new possibilities for quantum sensors, atomic clocks, and tests of fundamental physics, JILA researchers have developed new ways of “entangling” or interlinking the properties of large numbers of particles. In the process they have devised ways to measure large groups of atoms more accurately even in disruptive, noisy environments.

The new techniques are described in a pair of papers published in Nature.[1] JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Scientists can’t decide if consciousness is real or fake

What if everything in our world has a soul and mind? What if every desk, chair, and potted plant has a conscious stream of thoughts? That’s the basic idea behind Panpsychism, a theory first put forward in the late 16th century by Francesco Patrizi. It’s been a hundred years or so since science won out about this theory in the 1920s, but now it’s regaining momentum.

To understand why this theory is regaining popularity requires us to look at one of the most difficult conundrums that human scientists have ever faced: where consciousness comes from. Scientists have been trying to solve this hard problem for over a hundred years, and while developments in neuroscience, psychology, and quantum physics have come far, we still don’t have a definitive answer.

The argument is regaining momentum, though, thanks in part to the work of Italian neuroscientist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi, who proposed the idea that there is widespread consciousness even found in the simplest of systems. Tononi and American neuroscientist Christof Koch argued that consciousness will follow where there are organized lumps of matter. Some even believe that the stars may be conscious.

Researchers develop new single-molecule transistor that uses quantum interference

An international team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London, the University of Oxford, Lancaster University, and the University of Waterloo have developed a new single-molecule transistor that uses quantum interference to control the flow of electrons. The transistor, which is described in a paper published in the Nature Nanotechnology (“Quantum interference enhances the performance of single-molecule transistors”), opens new possibilities for using quantum effects in electronic devices.

Transistor are the basic building blocks of modern electronics. They are used to amplify and switch electrical signals, and they are essential for everything from smartphones to spaceships. However, the traditional method of making transistors, which involves etching silicon into tiny channels, is reaching its limits.

As transistors get smaller, they become increasingly inefficient and susceptible to errors, as electrons can leak through the device even when it is supposed to be switched off, by a process known as quantum tunnelling. Researchers are exploring new types of switching mechanisms that can be used with different materials to remove this effect.

Coding with Qiskit 1.x Series Announcement

Welcome back to Coding with Qiskit! Join research scientist Dr. Derek Wang as he walks you through the exciting capabilities of Qiskit 1 for utility scale quantum computing.

He’ll show you how to install Qiskit version 1 from scratch and how to run quantum circuits–both unitary and dynamic, all based on some of the latest research papers by IBM Quantum–on devices with over 100 qubits using the latest error suppression and mitigation techniques. He’ll also be learning how to contribute to the Qiskit ecosystem with the help of open-source extraordinaire Abby Mitchell.

Remember to subscribe to get notified when the first episode is out!

Read more about Qiskit 1 here: https://www.ibm.com/quantum/blog/qisk…

#ibmquantum #qiskit #learnquantum

Putting a New Spin on 1T Phase Tantalum Disulfide

Research often unfolds as a multistage process. The solution to one question can spark several more, inspiring scientists to reach further and look at the larger problem from several different perspectives. Such projects can often be the catalyst for collaborations that leverage the expertise and capabilities of different teams and institutions as they grow.

For half a century, scientists have delved into the mysteries of 1T phase tantalum disulfide (1T-TaS2), an inorganic layered material with some intriguing quantum properties, like superconductivity and charge density waves (CDW). To unlock the complex structure and behavior of this material, researchers from the Jozef Stefan Institute in Slovenia and Université Paris-Saclay in France reached out to experts utilizing the Pair Distribution Function (PDF) beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, to learn more about the material’s structure. While the team in Slovenia had been studying these kinds of materials for decades, they were lacking the specific structural characterization that PDF could provide.

The results of this collaboration, recently published in Nature Communications, revealed a hidden electronic state that could only be seen by a local structure probe like the pair distribution function technique. With a more complete understanding of 1T-TaS2’s electronic states, this material may one day play a role in data storage, quantum computing, and superconductivity.