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Category: quantum physics – Page 752

Quantum tunnelling in water opens the way to improved biosensing

Circa 2017 A magnonic holographic matrix could be used to essentially treat the water in a solid-state way.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have applied quantum techniques to understanding the electrolysis of water, which is the application of an electric current to H2O to produce the constituent elements hydrogen and oxygen.

They found that electrons can ‘tunnel’ through barriers in away from the electrodes, neutralising ions of impurities in that . This can be detected in changes in current, which has applications for biosensing, the detection of biological elements in solution.

This neutralisation of ions in solution is a different idea to that currently believed, where the neutralisation only happens at the electrode surface.

Gamma-ray laser moves a step closer to reality

O.o.

A physicist at the University of California, Riverside, has performed calculations showing hollow spherical bubbles filled with a gas of positronium atoms are stable in liquid helium.

The calculations take scientists a step closer to realizing a , which may have applications in , spacecraft propulsion, and .

Extremely short-lived and only briefly stable, positronium is a hydrogen-like atom and a mixture of matter and antimatter—specifically, bound states of electrons and their antiparticles called positrons. To create a gamma-ray laser beam, positronium needs to be in a state called a Bose-Einstein condensate—a collection of positronium atoms in the same , allowing for more interactions and gamma radiation. Such a condensate is the key ingredient of a gamma-ray laser.

BREAKING: Bomb Squad Investigating Report of a Possible Small Nuclear Reactor Inside a Garage in Columbus, Ohio

Ok… which one of y’all is this?

UPDATE 3: The man reportedly told bomb squad that he sustained “radio frequency burns” while working on a “quantum physics generator” in his garage, according to Battalion Chief Steve Martin, the Columbus Division of Fire spokesman, speaking to the Columbus Dispatch.

“We have no reason to believe that he was trying to make anything that would do anyone any harm,” Martin added.

UPDATE 2: Haley Nelson of WSYX-TV reports that a resident was working on a “quantum physics generator” at the home and was burned. The type of burns caused confusion among first responders, prompting a precautionary evacuation of about 40 homes.

Researchers achieve quantum control of an oscillator using a Josephson circuit

Superconducting circuits, which have zero electrical resistance, could enable the development of electronic components that are significantly more energy-efficient than most chips used today. Importantly, superconducting circuits rely on an electronic element known as the Josephson junction, which allows them to manipulate quantum information and mediate photon interactions. While past studies have tried to enhance the performance and coherence of Josephson circuits, so far, the most promising results in terms of photon lifetimes were achieved in microwave cavities.

A team of researchers at Princeton University, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago have directly operated an oscillator using a stimulated Josephson nonlinearity. In their paper, published in Nature Physics, the team achieved quantum control of an oscillator by operating it as an isolated two-level system, tailoring its Hilbert space.

“Our research was motivated by the ongoing effort in the superconducting circuits community to engineer highly coherent qubits for quantum information,” Prof. Andrew Houck, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “There has been enormous progress in designing linear microwave resonators that can outperform the coherence of conventional superconducting qubits.”

Are there multiple universes?

What – one vast, ancient and mysterious universe isn’t enough for you? Well, as it happens, there are others. Among physicists, it’s not controversial. Our universe is but one in an unimaginably massive ocean of universes called the multiverse.

If that concept isn’t enough to get your head around, physics describes different kinds of multiverse. The easiest one to comprehend is called the cosmological multiverse. The idea here is that the universe expanded at a mind-boggling speed in the fraction of a second after the big bang. During this period of inflation, there were quantum fluctuations which caused separate bubble universes to pop into existence and themselves start inflating and blowing bubbles. Russian physicist Andrei Linde came up with this concept, which suggests an infinity of universes no longer in any causal connection with one another – so free to develop in different ways.

Cosmic space is big – perhaps infinitely so. Travel far enough and some theories suggest you’d meet your cosmic twin – a copy of you living in a copy of our world, but in a different part of the multiverse. String theory, which is a notoriously theoretical explanation of reality, predicts a frankly meaninglessly large number of universes, maybe 10 to the 500 or more, all with slightly different physical parameters.

New algorithms to determine eigenstates and thermal states on quantum computers

Determining the quantum mechanical behavior of many interacting particles is essential to solving important problems in a variety of scientific fields, including physics, chemistry and mathematics. For instance, in order to describe the electronic structure of materials and molecules, researchers first need to find the ground, excited and thermal states of the Born-Oppenheimer Hamiltonian approximation. In quantum chemistry, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation is the assumption that electronic and nuclear motions in molecules can be separated.

A variety of other scientific problems also require the accurate computation of Hamiltonian ground, excited and thermal states on a quantum computer. An important example are combinatorial optimization problems, which can be reduced to finding the ground state of suitable spin systems.

So far, techniques for computing Hamiltonian eigenstates on quantum computers have been primarily based on phase estimation or variational algorithms, which are designed to approximate the lowest energy eigenstate (i.e., ground state) and a number of excited states. Unfortunately, these techniques can have significant disadvantages, which make them impracticable for solving many scientific problems.