Quantum computers are finally on the verge of being useful

For all media threshing surrounding quantum computers, technology can sometimes seem a solution to the search for a problem. Scientifically impressive, but not yet obviously useful in the real world. However, hunting for applications is now starting to give results – in particular the pursuit of exotic quantum materials which could overeat the development of new electronics and even more powerful IT systems.

Discover and probe new phases – that is to say, more exotic equivalents of the ice or water -liquid phases – is the bread and butter of the physics of the condensed matter. This area has helped us understand semiconductors that operate traditional computers and can possibly give us practical superconductors, which would lead electricity with perfect efficiency.

But it becomes more and more difficult to use traditional experiences to study some of the most complex phases that predicted theory should exist. For example, a theoretical framework known as the Kitaev Honeycomb model predicts the existence of materials with unusual magnetism, as well as those which contain almost unusual quasiparticles – Particle type entities – called Anyyons. In fact, there was a “quest for several decades to really conceive this in real world materials”, explains Simon Evered at Harvard University.

He and his colleagues have now simulated this using a quantum computer that has 104 qubits made from extremely cold atoms. And they are not the only researchers to do so. Frank Pollmann at the Munich Technical University in Germany and his colleagues used computers Quantum Sycamore and Willow from Google, which respectively house 72 and 105 qubits, to simulate a state of material never seen before. The two teams have published their studies.

“These two articles use quantum computers to explore new phases of matter which have so far been predicted in theory, but not carried out in experiences,” explains Pet Zappletal at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, which has not been involved in any study. “What is exciting is the speed with which simulations of quantum and condensed material systems on quantum computers become more advanced”.

The two research teams confirmed everyone in their simulations. This in itself shows both the progression of quantum computers and their possible utility, because ancients are exotic particles which are fundamentally different from qubits and are therefore difficult to imitate.

All other existing particles are distributed in two other categories – Fermions and Bosons. Those who are most interesting for chemists and scientists of materials are generally farmions, but qubits tend to be bosons. The differences between the two, such as their towers or how they behave in large groups, makes it difficult to simulate the fermions if you start with bosons, but the quantum computer experience with cold atoms used the Kitaev model to fill the gap. Marcin Kalinowski at Harvard University, who worked on this experience, says they used the Kitaev model as a “canvas” for the new physics – starting with this model, he and his colleagues could push the qubits to emerge in the simulation by adjusting the interactions between the quibits. It may even be possible to use some of these new particles to simulate more new materials, explains Kalinowski.

The experience that used Google’s computers included another important element. He focused on the removal of the simulated material of balance – the equivalent of shaking it constantly. The unpleasant phases of matter are largely unexplored even if they have laboratory counterparts, such as experiments where a material is hit several times by laser light, explains Pollmann. In this way, the work of his team reflects how a condensed laboratory physicist can expose a material at cold temperatures or high magnetic fields, then try to diagnose how its phase has changed. These diagnoses are essential because they can ultimately reveal under what circumstances the equipment could be used.

To be clear, these experiences will not immediately lead to something useful. In fact, to access real world applications, researchers will have to repeat their analyzes on larger quantum computers and less prone to errors – the genre that we still don’t really have. But the two experiences cut a niche where quantum computers can explore physics and possibly lead to discoveries in the same way as other experimental tools that researchers have been used for decades.

This science of materials can be the first place that quantum computers prove that their value is not a shock. It conforms to the way in which the off -aging offices of quantum computing, like Richard Feynman, spoke of technology in the 1980s, long before anyone who knew only one qubit, not to mention the dozens. And it is clearly different from the way in which quantum computer science is often presented, where the emphasis is on experiences that have quantum computers surpassing conventional computers in tasks unrelated to practical applications.

“The value in terms of the development of quantum IT as an approach to science, rather than from the point of view of the performance of individual devices, is indisputable in this type of experience,” explains Kalinowski.