Strange New Phase of Matter Created in Quantum Computer Acts Like It Has Two Time Dimensions
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Strange New Phase of Matter Created in Quantum Computer Acts Like It Has Two Time Dimensions:
By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created a remarkable, never-before-seen phase of matter. The phase has the benefits of two time dimensions despite there still being only one singular flow of time, the physicists report July 20 in Nature.
This mind-bending property offers a sought-after benefit: Information stored in the phase is far more protected against errors than with alternative setups currently used in quantum computers. As a result, the information can exist without getting garbled for much longer, an important milestone for making quantum computing viable, says study lead author Philipp Dumitrescu.
The approach's use of an "extra" time dimension "is a completely different way of thinking about phases of matter," says Dumitrescu, who worked on the project as a research fellow at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Quantum Physics in New York City. "I've been working on these theory ideas for over five years, and seeing them come actually to be realized in experiments is exciting."
[...] The workhorses of the team's quantum computer are 10 atomic ions of an element called ytterbium. Each ion is individually held and controlled by electric fields produced by an ion trap, and can be manipulated or measured using laser pulses.
Each of those atomic ions serves as what scientists dub a quantum bit, or 'qubit.' Whereas traditional computers quantify information in bits (each representing a 0 or a 1), the qubits used by quantum computers leverage the strangeness of quantum mechanics to store even more information. Just as Schrodinger's cat is both dead and alive in its box, a qubit can be a 0, a 1 or a mashup - or 'superposition' - of both. That extra information density and the way qubits interact with one another promise to allow quantum computers to tackle computational problems far beyond the reach of conventional computers.
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