Lifeboat Foundation

The best examples are simple. This is especially true in quantum computing, where complexity can get out of hand pretty fast. A team of researchers at D-Wave, with collaborators from USC, Tokyo Tech, and Saitama Medical University, recently explored a quantum phase transition — a complex subject by anyone’s standards — in a very simple 1D chain of magnetic spins. Our work, published today in Nature Physics, studies quantum critical dynamics in a coherently annealed Ising chain. Here are a few things we learned along the way.

Programmable quantum phase transitions, as ordered

Phase transitions, such as water to ice, are commonly attributed to changes in temperature. But there is another type of phase transition —-a quantum phase transition (QPT) —-where quantum effects determine the properties of a physical system, in the absence of thermal effects. In a 1D chain, spins at the end of the simulation are either “up” or “down”, and we get “kinks” separating blocks of up spins and down spins (during the simulation, spins can be in a superposition of up and down). The density and spacing of kinks depend on, among other things, the speed and “quantumness” of the experiment. In this work we guided the programmable system of spins through a QPT and investigated the effect of varying parameters such as speed, system size, and temperature.

Scientists have demonstrated a powerful technique that will allow quantum computers to store much more information in photons of light. The team managed to encode eight levels of data into photons and read it back easily, representing an exponential leap over previous systems.

Traditional computers store and process information in binary bits, which can hold a value of zero or one. Quantum computers boost this power drastically with their quantum bits, or qubits, which can hold values of zero, one or both at the same time. But an emerging version of qubits, known as qudits, up the game even more. Rather than just two values like qubits, qudits can theoretically contain dozens of different values, greatly increasing the data processing and storage potential. Better yet, qudits are also more resilient against external noise that can disrupt qubits.

But, of course, there’s a catch: it’s hard to measure and read back data stored on qudits. So for the new study, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University and EPFL have developed a technique to produce and read qudits more reliably. In their experiments, they generated qudits that could each hold up to eight levels of information, and quantum-entangled them in pairs to generate a 64-dimensional quantum space. This, the team says, is four times larger than in previous studies.

Quantum science has not only deepened human understanding of the structure of matter and its microscopic interactions, but also introduced a new paradigm of computing and information science—quantum computing and quantum simulation. Quantum informatics research has won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Among many quantum computing and simulation platforms, Rydberg Atom Arrays is considered the most promising system to show quantum superiority among many programmable quantum simulator platforms in recent years due to its largest number of qubits and highest experimental accuracy.

Such optical lattices consist of individual neutral alkaline-earth atoms with significant dipole moments trapped in arrays of microscopic dipole traps, which can be optically moved at will to make desired lattice geometry. Each atom can be excited to its Rydberg state, and a pair of excited states interact through their dipole moments via a long-range interaction.

Meta’s push to put computing into a headset will end in tears.

Nvidia’s software restriction to limit Ethereum mining over the RTX 3,000 graphics cards is officially dead because it’s now irrelevant.

On Friday, an Nvidia spokesperson confirmed that the company had removed the “Lite Hash Rate” limiter after users began reporting (Opens in a new window) the absence of the mining restriction in the latest Nvidia drivers releases for Windows and Linux.

“We don’t believe it’s necessary in the current environment,” the Nvidia spokesperson told PCMag without elaborating.

At 200 times stronger than steel, graphene has been hailed as a super material of the future since its discovery in 2004. The ultrathin carbon material is an incredibly strong electrical and thermal conductor, making it a perfect ingredient to enhance semiconductor chips found in many electrical devices.

But while graphene-based research has been fast-tracked, the nanomaterial has hit roadblocks: in particular, manufacturers have not been able to create large, industrially relevant amounts of the material. New research from the laboratory of Nai-Chang Yeh, the Thomas W. Hogan Professor of Physics, is reinvigorating the graphene craze.

Continue reading “Graphene improves circuits in flexible and wearable electronics” »

A dish of living brain cells has learned to play the 1970s arcade game Pong.

About 800,000 cells linked to a computer gradually learned to sense the position of the game’s electronic ball and control a virtual paddle, a team reports in the journal Neuron.

The novel achievement is part of an effort to understand how the brain learns, and how to make computers more intelligent.

Circa 2017 face_with_colon_three

To demonstrate this, researchers stored historic audio recordings on these molecules for the first time and then retrieved them with 100 percent accuracy. The experiment showed that DNA not only offers a place to save a dense package of information in a tiny space, but because it can last for hundreds of years, it reduces the risk that it will go out of date or degrade in the way that cassette tapes, compact discs, and even computer hard drives can.

“DNA is intrinsically and exquisitely a stable molecule,” Emily Leproust, CEO of the biotech firm Twist Bioscience, which works on DNA synthesis, told Seeker. Her company collaborated with Microsoft, the University of Washington, and the Montreux Jazz Digital Project on the DNA data feat.

Continue reading “Music Was Just Encoded on DNA and Retrieved for the First Time” »

Circa 2017 face_with_colon_three

A new device developed at The Ohio State University can start healing organs in a “fraction of a second,” researchers say.

The technology, known as Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), has the potential to save the lives of car crash victims and even deployed soldiers injured on site. It’s a dime-sized silicone chip that “injects genetic code into skin cells, turning those skin cells into other types of cells required for treating diseased conditions,” according to a release.

Continue reading “New device can heal with a single touch, and even repair brain injuries” »