China claims to develop crucial quantum computing component domestically, hinting at self-reliance amid intensifying US rivalry.
Category: quantum physics – Page 409
A New Dimension of Quantum Materials: Topological Phonons Discovered in Crystal Lattices
An international research team has shown that phonons, the quantum particles behind material vibrations, can be classified using topology, much like electronic bands in materials. This breakthrough could lead to the development of new materials with unique thermal, electrical, and mechanical properties, enhancing our understanding and manipulation of solid-state physics.
An international group of researchers has found that quantum particles, which play a key role in the vibrations of materials affecting their stability and other characteristics, can be classified through topology. Known as phonons, these particles represent the collective vibrational patterns of atoms within a crystal structure. They create disturbances that spread like waves to nearby atoms. Phonons are crucial for several properties of solids, such as thermal and electrical conductivity, neutron scattering, and quantum states including charge density waves and superconductivity.
The spectrum of phonons—essentially the energy as a function of momentum—and their wave functions, which represent their probability distribution in real space, can be computed using ab initio first principle codes. However, these calculations have so far lacked a unifying principle. For the quantum behavior of electrons, topology—a branch of mathematics—has successfully classified the electronic bands in materials. This classification shows that materials, which might seem different, are actually very similar.
What If the Universe had No Beginning?
In this episode, we’ve embarked on an exciting journey into the heart of quantum cosmology, exploring Stephen Hawking’s revolutionary \.
Researchers realize multiphoton electron emission with non-classical light
Strong field quantum optics is a rapidly emerging research topic, which merges elements of non-linear photoemission rooted in strong field physics with the well-established realm of quantum optics. While the distribution of light particles (i.e., photons) has been widely documented both in classical and non-classical light sources, the impact of such distributions on photoemission processes remains poorly understood.
Tracing the history of perturbative expansion in quantum field theory
Perturbative expansion is a valuable mathematical technique which is widely used to break down descriptions of complex quantum systems into simpler, more manageable parts. Perhaps most importantly, it has enabled the development of quantum field theory (QFT): a theoretical framework that combines principles from classical, quantum, and relativistic physics, and serves as the foundation of the Standard Model of particle physics.
Researchers develop world’s smallest quantum light detector on a silicon chip
Researchers at the University of Bristol have made an important breakthrough in scaling quantum technology by integrating the world’s tiniest quantum light detector onto a silicon chip. The paper, “A Bi-CMOS electronic photonic integrated circuit quantum light detector,” was published in Science Advances.
Quantum Computers Take a Major Step With Error Correction Breakthrough
For quantum computers to go from research curiosities to practically useful devices, researchers need to get their errors under control. New research from Microsoft and Quantinuum has now taken a major step in that direction.
Today’s quantum computers are stuck firmly in the “noisy intermediate-scale quantum” (NISQ) era. While companies have had some success stringing large numbers of qubits together, they are highly susceptible to noise which can quickly degrade their quantum states. This makes it impossible to carry out computations with enough steps to be practically useful.
While some have claimed that these noisy devices could still be put to practical use, the consensus is that quantum error correction schemes will be vital for the full potential of the technology to be realized. But error correction is difficult in quantum computers because reading the quantum state of a qubit causes it to collapse.