31 Jan. () –
Physicists have invented a new type of analog quantum computer capable of tackling difficult physical problems that the most powerful digital supercomputers cannot solve.
New research published in Nature Physics by scientists at Stanford and University College Dublin (UCD) has shown that a new type of highly specialized analog computer, whose circuitry incorporates quantum components, can solve state-of-the-art quantum physics problems that were previously out of reach. When scaled up, these devices will be able to shed light on some of the most important unsolved problems in physics.
For example, scientists and engineers have long wanted to better understand superconductivity, because existing superconducting materials—such as those used in MRI machines, high-speed trains, and low-power long-distance power grids—only they currently operate at extremely low temperatures, which limits their widespread use. The holy grail of materials science is finding superconducting materials at room temperature, which would revolutionize its use in a multitude of technologies.
Dr Andrew Mitchell is Director of the UCD Center for Quantum Engineering, Science and Technology (C-QuEST), a theoretical physicist in the UCD School of Physics and co-author of the paper.
In your opinion, “some problems are too complex for even the fastest digital classical computers to solve. Precise simulation of complex quantum materials like high-temperature superconductors is a really important example: that kind of computing is well beyond current capabilities due to the exponential computing time and memory requirements needed to simulate the properties of realistic models. .”
“However, technological and engineering advances driving the digital revolution have brought with them the unprecedented ability to control matter at the nanoscale. This has allowed us to design specialized analog computers, called ‘Quantum Simulators’, that solve specific models of quantum physics by taking advantage of the quantum mechanical properties inherent in their nanoscale components. Although we have not yet been able to build an all-purpose programmable quantum computer powerful enough to solve all open problems in physics, what we can do now is build custom analog devices with quantum components that can solve specific problems in quantum physics.” explained it’s a statement.
The architecture of these new quantum devices includes hybrid metal-semiconductor components embedded in a nanoelectronic circuit, devised by researchers at Stanford, UCD, and the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (located at Stanford). The Stanford Experimental Nanoscience Group, led by Professor David Goldhaber-Gordon, built and put the device into operation, while theory and modeling were carried out by Dr Mitchell of UCD.
The essential idea of these analog devices, according to Goldhaber-Gordon, is build a kind of hardware analogy to the problem you want to solve, instead of writing computer code for a programmable digital computer. For example, suppose we want to predict the movement of the planets in the night sky and the timing of eclipses. He could do this by building a mechanical model of the solar system in which someone turned a crank and interlocking rotating gears represented the movement of the moon and planets.
In fact, such a mechanism was discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the coast of a Greek island that dates back more than 2,000 years. This device can be considered a first analog computer.
Analog machines were even used at the end of the 20th century for mathematical calculations that they were too difficult for the most advanced digital computers of the time.
But to solve quantum physics problems, devices must include quantum components. The new architecture of the Quantum Simulator includes electronic circuits with nanoscale components whose properties are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. More importantly, many such components can be made, each of which behaves essentially identically to the others.
This is crucial for the analog simulation of quantum materials, where each of the electronic components in the circuit is a surrogate for an atom being simulated, and behaves like an “artificial atom.” Just as different atoms of the same type in a material behave identically, so must the different electronic components of the analog computer.
Thus, the new design offers a unique path to extend the technology from individual units to large networks capable of simulating mass quantum matter. Also, researchers have shown that new microscopic quantum interactions can be created in these devices. The work constitutes a step forward towards the development of a new generation of scalable solid-state analog quantum computers.
To demonstrate the power of analog quantum computing using their new Quantum Simulator platform, the researchers first studied a simple circuit made up of two quantum components coupled together.
The device simulates a model of two atoms coupled by a peculiar quantum interaction. By adjusting the electrical voltages, the researchers were able to produce a new state of matter in which electrons appear to have only a fraction of 1/3 of their usual electrical charge, so-called “Z3 parafermions.” These elusive states have been proposed as the basis for future topological quantum computing, but never before had they been created in the lab on an electronic device.
“By extending the quantum simulator from two to many nanometer-sized components, we hope to be able to model much more complicated systems that current computers cannot handle,” says Dr. Mitchell. “This could be the first step in finally unraveling some of the most perplexing mysteries of our quantum universe.”
