In a mind-warping milestone experiment, scientists have been able to manipulate small numbers of individual photons of light, opening doors for the development of quantum technologies. This research, published in the journal Nature Physics on March 20, describes how the researchers were able to make two photons of light interact and measure the difference between these interacting photons and a single photon.
Photosynthesis drives all life on Earth. Complex processes are required for the sunlight-powered conversion of carbon dioxide and water to energy-rich sugar and oxygen. These processes are driven by two protein complexes, photosystems I and II. In photosystem I, sunlight is used with an efficiency of almost 100%. Here a complex network of 288 chlorophylls plays the decisive role.
A team led by LMU chemist Regina de Vivie-Riedle has now characterized these chlorophylls with the help of high-precision quantum chemical calculations—an important milestone toward a comprehensive understanding of energy transfer in this system. This discovery may help exploit its efficiency in artificial systems in the future.
The chlorophylls in photosystem I capture sunlight in an antenna complex and transfer the energy to a reaction center. There, the solar energy is used to trigger a redox process—that is to say, a chemical process whereby electrons are transferred. The quantum yield of photosystem I is almost 100%, meaning that almost every absorbed photon leads to a redox event in the reaction center.
Researchers have discovered a way to “translate” quantum information between different kinds of quantum technologies, with significant implications for quantum computing, communication, and networking.
The research was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. It represents a new way to convert quantum information from the format used by quantum computers to the format needed for quantum communication.
Photons—particles of light—are essential for quantum information technologies, but different technologies use them at different frequencies. For example, some of the most common quantum computing technology is based on superconducting qubits, such as those used by tech giants Google and IBM; these qubits store quantum information in photons that move at microwave frequencies.
The researchers observed it stimulated light emission, which Einstein predicted in 1916, in single photons for the first time.
A team of researchers from the University of Basel and the University of Sydney accomplished a groundbreaking feat by demonstrating the capability to manipulate and identify small numbers of interacting packets of light energy or photons with high correlation for the first time.
The achievement, published in Nature Physics, marks a significant milestone in developing quantum technologies. The researchers observed it stimulated light emission, which Einstein predicted in 1916, in single photons for the first time.
In a ground-breaking experiment, scientists have successfully created the fifth form of matter, known as the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), for a remarkable duration of six minutes.
This major accomplishment has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of quantum mechanics and open the door to new technological advancements. In this article, we will explore the significance of this achievement, the nature of BECs, and the potential applications of this newfound knowledge.
A quantum computer in the next decade could crack the encryption our society relies on using Shor’s Algorithm. Head to https://brilliant.org/veritasium to start your free 30-day trial, and the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
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A huge thank you to those who helped us understand this complex field and ensure we told this story accurately — Dr. Lorenz Panny, Prof. Serge Fehr, Dr. Dustin Moody, Prof. Benne de Weger, Prof. Tanja Lange, PhD candidate Jelle Vos, Gorjan Alagic, and Jack Hidary.
A huge thanks to those who helped us with the math behind Shor’s algorithm — Prof. David Elkouss, Javier Pagan Lacambra, Marc Serra Peralta, and Daniel Bedialauneta Rodriguez.
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References:
Joseph, D., et al. (2022). Transitioning organizations to post-quantum cryptography. Nature, 605(7909), 237–243. — https://ve42.co/Joseph2022
Bernstein, D. J., & Lange, T. (2017). Post-quantum cryptography. Nature, 549(7671), 188–194. — https://ve42.co/Bernstein2017
An Insight, An Idea with Sundar Pichai — Quantum Computing, Wold Economic Forum via YouTube — https://ve42.co/QCWEFyt.
At its annual GTC event, Nvidia announced a partnership with Tel Aviv-based Quantum Machines to create a state-of-the-art architecture for quantum-classical computing.
The collaboration intends to bring about purpose-built infrastructure for quantum computing and GPU supercomputing capable of real-time quantum error correction. Known as DGX Quantum, the first system is expected to deploy to the Israel Quantum Computing Center.
A team of researchers from the Université libre de Bruxelles and the French National Center for Scientific Research have shown for the first time that an exotic type of process violating causal inequalities can be realized with known physics. A violation of a causal inequality proves under theory-independent assumptions that certain variables in an experiment cannot be assigned a definite causal order.
This is a phenomenon that has been known to be possible in theory, but widely believed impossible in practice, at least in the known regimes of physics. The new study, published in Nature Communications, shows that such processes can in fact be realized in standard quantum mechanics using variables that are delocalized in time. The finding may have far-reaching implications for our understanding of causality in physics.
The concept of causality is essential for physics and for our understanding of the world in general. Usually, we think of events as happening in a well-defined causal order. That is, they are ordered according to some time parameter, such that events in the past can influence events in the future, but not vice versa. For instance, the sunrise causes the rooster to crow, but whether the rooster crows does not have any influence on the sunrise.