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Researchers at Microsoft say they have created elusive quasiparticles called Majorana zero modes – but scientists outside the company are sceptical Microsoft researchers have made a controversial claim that they have seen evidence of an elusive particle that could solve some of the biggest headaches in quantum computing, but some experts are questioning the discovery. Quantum computers process information using quantum bits, or qubits, but current iterations can be prone to error. “What the field needs is a new kind of qubit,” says Chetan Nayak at Microsoft Quantum. He and his colleagues say they have taken a significant step...

Quantum computers have the potential to outperform classical computers on several complex tasks, yet many challenges will need to be overcome before they reach their full potential. In the meantime, physicists and computer scientists have been trying to realistically estimate the capabilities that quantum computing technologies will exhibit in the near future. Quantum simulations—realizations of quantum systems manifested using programmable simulation devices—have proved particularly valuable for determining the near-term potential of quantum computers. One approach that can be investigated using quantum simulations is quantum annealing, an optimization process based on engineered quantum fluctuations. The quantum simulation of the 1D Ising...

Two teams of researchers working independently have shown the viability of using neutral atoms to create quantum circuits—both have published outlines of their work in the journal Nature. One of the groups, with members from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, ColdQuanta and Riverlane, successfully ran an algorithm on a cold atom quantum computer for the first time. The second group, with members from Harvard, MIT, QuEra Computing Inc., the University of Innsbruck and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, showed that it was possible to build a quantum processor based on coherent transport of entangled atom arrays. Hannah Williams, with Durham...

Cuprous oxide crystal. (University of St Andrews) One of the ways we can fully realize the potential of quantum computers is by basing them on both light and matter – this way, information can be stored and processed, but also travel at the speed of light. Scientists have just taken a step closer to this goal, by successfully producing the largest hybrid particles of light and matter ever created. These quasiparticles, known as Rydberg polaritons, were made with the help of a piece of stone containing cuprous oxide (Cu2O) crystals from an ancient deposit in Namibia, one of the few...

An aspect of quantum theory called contextuality is crucial for achieving universal quantum computation, a University of Waterloo Institute of Quantum Computing news release reported. ... Quantum devices are almost impossible to build because they need to operate in a noise-resistant environment. The "magic" is a new approach to building a noise-resistant quantum computer. The process is known as magic-state distillation. By identifying this "magic" state researchers could be closer to achieving a universal quantum computer. ... In the real world measurements look at the property of something but in quantum terms what is observed really depends on how the...

WHILE physicists struggle to get quantum computers to function at cryogenic temperatures, other researchers are saying that humble algae and bacteria may have been performing quantum calculations at life-friendly temperatures for billions of years. The evidence comes from a study of how energy travels across the light-harvesting molecules involved in photosynthesis. The work has culminated this week in the extraordinary announcement that these molecules in a marine alga may exploit quantum processes at room temperature to transfer energy without loss. Physicists had previously ruled out quantum processes, arguing that they could not persist for long enough at such temperatures to...

In the past 5 years, no material has excited more interest from condensed matter physicists than graphene, a sheet of carbon only one atom thick. Electrons zing through the stuff in an unusual way, and they flow so easily that graphene could someday replace silicon and other semiconductors as the material of choice for microchips. Now, a team of physicists has taken a key step in fulfilling graphene's promise as a hotbed of exotic physics by showing that the electrons within it can team up to behave like particles with a fraction of the electron's charge. The effect is called...

Science Daily — Australian and French scientists have made another breakthrough in the technology that will drive next generation computers and teleportation. The researchers have successfully superposed light beams, which produces a state that appears to be both on and off at once. Light beams that are simultaneously on and off are vital for the next-generation super computers which should be faster than current computers based on bits, that are either on or off. Previously, only smaller light particles had been superposed and the group has also proved a quantum physics theory known as Schrödinger's cat. This theory, named after...