By firing Fibonacci laser pulses at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created an entirely new and exotic phase of matter. The...
By firing Fibonacci laser pulses
at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created an entirely new and
exotic phase of matter. The new phase of matter, created by rhythmically
shaking a stream of 10 ytterbium ions using a laser, allows scientists to store
information in a much more precise way, opening the way for quantum computers,
which can retain data for long periods of time without There will be no
confusion.
Physicists are not looking to
create a phase with a theoretical extra time dimension, nor are they looking
for a way to achieve better quantum data storage. Instead, they are interested
in creating a new phase of matter, a new form in which matter can exist, beyond
the standard solid, liquid, gas, plasma.
Everyone needs to note that the
experiment described in this article has been successful. This quantum
processor consists of 10 ytterbium ions that are precisely controlled by lasers
in a device called an ion trap. Where ordinary computers use bits, or 0s and
1s, as the basis for all calculations, quantum computers are designed to use
qubits, which can also exist in a 0 or 1 state. Thanks to the strange laws of
the quantum world, qubits can exist as a combination or superposition of 0 and
1 states until the moment they are measured, at which point they randomly
collapse to 0 or 1.
This strange behavior is key to
quantum computing power because it allows qubits to be linked together through
quantum entanglement, which couples two or more qubits to each other, linking
their properties so that any change in one particle causes the other to change.
A particle changes, even if they are far apart. This enables quantum computers
to perform multiple calculations simultaneously, with an exponential increase
in processing power compared to classical devices.
But the development of quantum
computers has been greatly hindered: qubits not only interact, but are
entangled with each other, because they cannot be completely isolated from the
environment outside the quantum computer, they also interact with the external
environment, causing them to be in a state called In the process of
decoherence, the quantum properties and the information carried are lost.
"Even if you tightly control
all atoms, they can lose quantum information by environmental
effects, by increasing temperature, or by interacting in unexpected ways,"
the scientists said. To overcome these decoherence effects, create a new stable
phases, US physicists have studied a special group of phases called topological
phases.
Quantum entanglement enables
quantum devices not only to encode information in the singular static positions
of qubits, but also to weave them into dynamic motion and interactions
throughout a material, that is, in the shape or topology of the material's
entangled state. This results in a new topological qubit that encodes
information into shapes formed from multiple parts rather than one part alone,
making phase loss of information much less likely.
A key marker of moving from one
phase to another is the breaking of physical symmetry, the idea that the laws
of physics are the same for an object at any point in time or space. Creating a
new topological phase in a quantum computer also relies on this, but in this
new phase the symmetry is broken not in space but in time. By periodically
shaking each ion in the chain with a laser, the physicists hope to break the
continuous time symmetry of stationary ions and impose their own time symmetry,
in which the qubits remain constant over time intervals. change, which will
produce rhythmic topological phases on the material.
But the experiment failed.
Instead of inducing a topological phase that is immune to decoherence effects,
regular laser pulses amplify noise external to the system, losing quantum
information less than 1.5 seconds after switching on.
After rethinking the experiment,
the US physicists realized that in order to create a more robust topological
phase, they would need to link multiple time symmetries into the ion chain to
reduce the chances of the system being perturbed. To do this, they decided to
look for a pattern of pulses that didn't repeat simply and regularly, but
showed some sort of heightened symmetry in time.
Physicists thought of the
Fibonacci sequence, where the next number in the sequence is created by adding
the previous two. While simple periodic laser pulses might just alternate
between two laser sources (a, B, a, B, a, B, etc.), their new pulse trains ABA,
ABAB, ABABABA, etc.) to run.
This Fibonacci pulse creates a temporal symmetry that, like a quasicrystal in space, is ordered and never repeats. Like quasicrystals, Fibonacci pulses squeeze high-dimensional patterns onto low-dimensional surfaces. In the case of spatial quasicrystals such as Penrose tiling, slices of a five-dimensional lattice are projected onto a two-dimensional surface. When looking at Fibonacci impulse patterns, we see two theoretical time symmetries becoming one physical symmetry."The system essentially gains additional symmetry from an additional time dimension that does not exist," the scientists wrote in the statement. "The system appears to be a higher-dimensional substance with two time dimensions, Even if this is impossible in realistic theoretical physics predictions."
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