Events

QUANTUM + Pop Culture

“Quantum physics” has taken its position with “rocket science” in pop culture as a shorthand for frighteningly complicated science. Quantum physics has also taken on a sort of magical connotation in fiction, with features like entanglement, superposition, and tunneling spurring imagination. But where does the science draw the line? How much is joyful speculation, and how much is disregard for reality? And if it’s always seen as either magical or scary, how does that affect the perception of quantum science?

“Quantum physics” has taken its position with “rocket science” in pop culture as a shorthand for frighteningly complicated science. Quantum physics has also taken on a sort of magical connotation in fiction, with features like entanglement, superposition, and tunneling, spurring imagination. But where does the science draw the line? How much is joyful speculation, and how much is disregard for reality? And if it’s always seen as either magical or scary, how does that affect the perception of quantum science?

Previously, higher-order Hamiltonians (HoH) had been shown to offer an advantage in both metrology and quantum energy storage. In this work, we axiomatize a model of computation that allows us to consider such Hamiltonians for the purposes of computation. From this axiomatic model, we formally prove that an HoH-based algorithm can gain up to a quadratic speed-up (in the size of the input) over classical sequential algorithms—for any possible classical computation. We show how our axiomatic model is grounded in the same physics as that used in HoH-based quantum advantage for metrology and battery charging. Thus we argue that any advance in implementing HoH-based quantum advantage in those scenarios can be co-opted for the purpose of speeding up computation. 

QNC 1201
 

The ability to engineer the electrical, optical and magnetic properties of advanced materials on the nanoscale is of increasing importance to the development of future technologies. One approach to achieving this is through impurity doping, with increased control over the spatial resolution and isotopic purity enabled by the development of dedicated tools. In this talk the 'P-NAME' tool will be described, and the underlying principle surrounding its application for the development of doped systems for quantum technologies including qubits presented. cont.