Add a touch of creamer to your morning coffee, and clouds of white liquid will swirl around your cup. But give it a number of seconds, and people swirls will disappear, leaving you with an extraordinary mug of brown liquid.
Something similar happens in quantum computer chips — devices that tap into the strange properties of the universe at its smallest scales — where information can quickly jumble up, limiting the memory capabilities of those tools.
That does not need to be the case, said Rahul Nandkishore, associate professor of physics on the University of Colorado Boulder.
In a brand new coup for theoretical physics, he and his colleagues have used math to point out that scientists could create, essentially, a scenario where the milk and low never mix — regardless of how hard you stir them.
The group’s findings may result in latest advances in quantum computer chips, potentially providing engineers with latest ways to store information in incredibly tiny objects.
“Consider the initial swirling patterns that appear while you add cream to your morning coffee,” said Nandkishore, senior writer of the brand new study. “Imagine if these patterns continued to swirl and dance regardless of how long you watched.”
Researchers still have to run experiments within the lab to ensure that these never-ending swirls really are possible. However the group’s results are a serious step forward for physicists searching for to create materials that remain out of balance, or equilibrium, for long periods of time — a pursuit often called “ergodicity breaking.”
The team’s findings appeared this week in the newest issue of Physical Review Letters.
Quantum memory
The study, which incorporates co-authors David Stephen and Oliver Hart, postdoctoal researchers in physics at CU Boulder, hinges on a typical problem in quantum computing.
Normal computers run on “bits,” which take the shape of zeros or ones. Nandkishore explained that quantum computers, in contrast, employ “qubits,” which might exist as zero, one or, through the strangeness of quantum physics, zero and one at the identical time. Engineers have made qubits out of a big selection of things, including individual atoms trapped by lasers or tiny devices called superconductors.
But identical to that cup of coffee, qubits can turn out to be easily mixed up. If you happen to flip, for instance, your whole qubits to at least one, they’ll eventually flip backwards and forwards until your complete chip becomes a disorganized mess.
In the brand new research, Nandkishore and his colleagues could have figured a way around that tendency toward mixing. The group calculated that if scientists arrange qubits into particular patterns, these assemblages will retain their information — even should you disturb them using a magnetic field or an analogous disruption. That might, the physicist said, allow engineers to construct devices with a type of quantum memory.
“This may very well be a way of storing information,” he said. “You’d write information into these patterns, and the knowledge couldn’t be degraded.”
Tapping into geometry
Within the study, the researchers used mathematical modeling tools to ascertain an array of lots of to hundreds of qubits arranged in a checkerboard-like pattern.
The trick, they found, was to stuff the qubits into a good spot. If qubits get close enough together, Nadkishore explained, they’ll influence the behavior of their neighbors, almost like a crowd of individuals attempting to squeeze themselves right into a telephone booth. A few of those people is likely to be standing upright or on their heads, but they cannot flip the opposite way without pushing on everyone else.
The researchers calculated that in the event that they arranged these patterns in only the fitting way, those patterns might flow around a quantum computer chip and never degrade — very similar to those clouds of cream swirling perpetually in your coffee.
“The beauty of this study is that we discovered that we could understand this fundamental phenomenon through what is sort of easy geometry,” Nandkishore said.
The team’s findings could influence so much greater than just quantum computers.
Nandkishore explained that just about all the pieces within the universe, from cups of coffee to vast oceans, tends to maneuver toward what scientists call “thermal equilibrium.” If you happen to drop an ice cube into your mug, for instance, heat out of your coffee will melt the ice, eventually forming a liquid with a uniform temperature.
His latest findings, nonetheless, join a growing body of research that implies that some small organizations of matter can resist that equilibrium — seemingly breaking a number of the most immutable laws of the universe.
“We’re not going to need to redo our math for ice and water,” Nandkishore said. “The sector of mathematics that we call statistical physics is incredibly successful for describing things we encounter in on a regular basis life. But there are settings where perhaps it doesn’t apply.”
