The researchers at Duke University and the University of Maryland were able to see the quantum phenomena of phase changes on a quantum computer.
The researchers gained insight into how other systems meet their tipping points between phases by measuring the number of operations that can be implemented on a quantum computing system. Guidance for computer scientists working to implement quantum error correction will be provided by the results.
The results were published in a journal.
When water is heated to a boil, the movement of the molecule changes as the temperature goes up. A quantum computing system can be manipulated in time steps until it collapses into a solution.
Crystal Noel is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics at Duke. Even though it's digital, the quantum computing system behaves the same way as nature's quantum systems.
The power of quantum computers lies in their ability to be a combination of a 1 and 0 at the same time, with an increase in system complexity as more qubits are added. They can tackle a problem with massive parallelism by trying to fit a puzzle's pieces together all at once. The qubits need to be indecisive until a solution is found.
Error correction is one of the challenges this presents. The system must be able to discover and fix mistakes if it is to survive. It's difficult to keep an eye out for errors in quantum systems. With more qubits keeping an eye on things, the more likely it is to fail.
"Like water on the verge of becoming steam, there's a threshold of measurements a quantum computer can survive before it loses its quantum information." The number of measurement is an example of how many errors the computer can make.
Noel and her colleagues looked at the transition threshold in the new paper.
The group worked closely with Christopher Monroe, the Gilhuly Family PresidentialDistinguished Professor of Engineering and Physics at Duke, and others. One of the most powerful quantum computers in the world was used for the experiment.
The level of system automation combined with the number of qubits in the system makes this quantum computer system unique. Other systems have achieved each individually, but never all three at the same time. We were able to run these experiments because of that.
The team averaged over many random circuits to see how the measurement affects the qubits. Researchers will be able to build better approaches to error-correction codes in the future if they look at how the system behaved on either side of the critical point.
Researchers have never been able to see how other phases occur in nature.
Monroe said that the demonstration was a perfect example of what the center does. The underlying quantum nature of phase transitions can be probed with the use of quantum computers that are made of atoms that are under exquisite control. The same quantum computer can be used to solve models in other fields. This requires expertise not just in atomic physics, but in systems engineering, computer science and any other field that defines the application to be run.
More information: Crystal Noel et al, Measurement-induced quantum phases realized in a trapped-ion quantum computer, Nature Physics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01619-7 Journal information: Nature Physics
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