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One of the essential features required for the realization of a quantum computer is quantum entanglement. A team of physicists from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) introduces a novel technique to detect entanglement even in large-scale quantum systems with unprecedented efficiency. This brings scientists one step closer to the implementation of reliable quantum computation. The new results are of direct relevance for future generations of quantum devices and are published in the current issue of the journal Nature Physics.

Quantum computation has been drawing the attention of many scientists because of its potential to outperform the capabilities of standard computers for certain tasks. For the realization of a quantum computer, one of the most essential features is quantum entanglement. This describes an effect in which several quantum particles are interconnected in a complex way. If one of the entangled particles is influenced by an external measurement, the state of the other entangled particle changes as well, no matter how far apart they may be from one another. Many scientists are developing new techniques to verify the presence of this essential quantum feature in quantum systems. Efficient methods have been tested for systems containing only a few qubits, the basic units of quantum information. However, the physical implementation of a quantum computer would involve much larger quantum systems.

Researchers in China are using drones as nodes in the development of an airborne quantum communications network. The article describes how such a network, using a quantum drone would be nigh unhackable.

If we could trap light it could be used as a force field or even a lightsaber in future developments :3.

Quantum computers, which use light particles (photons) instead of electrons to transmit and process data, hold the promise of a new era of research in which the time needed to realize lifesaving drugs and new technologies will be significantly shortened. Photons are promising candidates for quantum computation because they can propagate across long distances without losing information, but when they are stored in matter they become fragile and susceptible to decoherence. Now researchers with the Photonics Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at The Graduate Center, CUNY have developed a new protocol for storing and releasing a single photon in an embedded eigenstate—a quantum state that is virtually unaffected by loss and decoherence. The novel protocol, detailed in the current issue of Optica, aims to advance the development of quantum computers.

“The goal is to store and release single photons on demand by simultaneously ensuring the stability of data,” said Andrea Alù, founding director of the ASRC Photonics Initiative and Einstein Professor of Physics at The Graduate Center. “Our work demonstrates that is possible to confine and preserve a single photon in an open cavity and have it remain there until it’s prompted by another photon to continue propagating.”

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Symmetry is a fundamental characteristic in nature. Understanding the mechanisms that break symmetries is essential to scientific research. Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB), in particular, occurs when thermal or quantum fluctuations drive a system from a symmetric state into an ordered state, as it occurs when a liquid turns into a solid. This mechanism allows researchers to classify different phases of matter according to the different patterns generated by the broken symmetry.

In the last decades, topology has also been recognized as a crucial characteristic to describe how matter is organized at the fundamental level. In this case, it is no longer the breaking of certain symmetries, but their conservation, which gives rise to novel states of matter, the so-called symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases. Different topological phases might present the same symmetries, but they can be distinguished by a global topological invariant, which takes integer values and is preserved under continuous deformations.

Current research in condensed matter physics aims to understand how symmetry breaking and symmetry protection compete, in particular in the presence of interactions. In a recent paper published in Nature Communications, ICFO researchers Daniel Gonzalez and Przemyslaw Grzybowski, led by Alexandre Dauphin and ICREA Prof. at ICFO Maciej Lewenstein, in collaboration with Alejandro Bermudez from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, report how these two processes cooperate, giving rise to new strongly-correlated topological effects.

They’re getting really good, really, really fast.

Provides an introduction to quantum computing for non-physicists, as well as an introduction to genetic programming for non-computer-scientists. The book explores several ways in which genetic programming can support automatic quantum computer programming and presents detailed descriptions of specific techniques, along with several examples of their human-competitive performance on specific problems. Source code for the author’s QGAME quantum computer simulator is included as an appendix, and pointers to additional online resources furnish the reader with an array of tools for automatic quantum computer programming.

Trapped ions could be used for gravitational sensing and quantum computation.

At the core of quantum computing is the qubit. The best ones have a few defining traits, and scientists are looking to everything from lasers to Russian diamonds to help refine the best qubits for the next generation of quantum computing.

Gravity has no quantum properties and it drives physicists crazy.