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Category: quantum physics – Page 17
Quantum computing tackles classical fluid dynamics challenges
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have tested a quantum computing approach to an old challenge: solving classical fluid dynamics problems.
The work is published in the journal Physics of Fluids. The results highlight avenues for further study of quantum computing’s potential to aid scientific discovery.
For the test problem, the research team used the Hele-Shaw flow problem—a scenario of two flat, parallel plates extremely close to each other and the flow of liquids and gases between them. The problem, although idealized, offers important applications in real-world problems such as microfluidics, groundwater flow, porous media flow, oil recovery and bioengineering.
Ultrafast spin-exchange in quantum dots enhances solar energy and photochemical efficiency
Quantum dots are microscopic semiconductor crystals developed in the lab that share many properties with atoms, including the ability to absorb or emit light, a technology that Los Alamos researchers have spent nearly three decades evolving. Through carrier multiplication, in which a single absorbed photon generates two electron-hole pairs, called excitons, quantum dots have the unique ability to convert photons more efficiently to energy.
“Our work demonstrates how purely quantum mechanical spin-exchange interactions can be harnessed to enhance the efficiency of photoconversion devices or photochemical reactions,” says Victor Klimov, the team’s principal investigator at the Lab. “This not only deepens our fundamental understanding of quantum mechanical phenomena but also introduces a new paradigm for designing advanced materials for energy applications.”
In this latest research, published in the journal Nature Communications, Los Alamos researchers improved this ability by introducing magnetic manganese impurities into quantum dots. This novel approach to highly efficient carrier multiplication leverages ultrafast spin-exchange interactions mediated by manganese ions to capture the energy of energetic (hot) carriers generated by incident photons and convert it into additional excitons.
Quantum Binary
Billions of years in the future on a very different Earth, the zombie parasite mushroom spreads from victim to victim without resistance.
On the shores of the acid sea a Honey Fire Ant meets its fate at the relentless mandibles of its infected brethren in this animated short created by T. Mikey and animated by Kevin Fanning.
The conflict continues in the pages of the 12-issue limited series, Quantum Binary: A Deep Time Botanical Paradox.
Available now at: https://quantumbinary.me.
Created and written by: T. Mikey.
Animation by: Kevin Fanning.
Music by: Infraction — No Copyright Music.
Why Physics Can Mislead You About Physical Reality
If you want to learn about the nature of physical reality, naturally, you would turn to physics. It would seem a bit contradictory to say that physics itself can mislead you about the nature of physical reality. Yet, this can actually happen, and let me explain.
For any physical theory, it is possible to mathematically formulate it in various different mathematically equivalent ways. Yet, some formulations of the theory may be more difficult to carry out calculations in than others. Naturally, physicists will gravitate towards the formalism that is the simplest to perform calculations in.
Before quantum mechanics, there was matrix mechanics as developed by Heisenberg. Matrix mechanics is mathematically equivalent to quantum mechanics, and so it gives all of the same predictions. When Schrodinger developed the modern formulation of quantum mechanics, he referred to it as wave mechanics to distinguish it from Heisenberg’s formulation.
