Physicists have come up with a way to force particles of light to move together in a way that has never been done before.
The breakthrough could lead to the realization of quantum memories or new forms of error correction in quantum computers, as well as observing quantum phenomena that cannot be seen in nature.
David Schuster is an associate professor at the University of Chicago who works on quantum bits, which are the equivalent of a computer bit. They were using particles of light to work in the microwave spectrum.
A single block of metal is used to make a long cavity that traps microwaves. Like holes in a flute, offset holes are used to make the cavity.
Schuster says that each wavelength can be used to create a note that can be used to decode quantum information.
A master quantum bit can be used to control the notes.
The way the photon behaved was odd.
They pass through each other in nature. Scientists can sometimes prompt two photons to respond to each other.
Schuster says that they do something weirder here. When the total energy in the system reaches a tipping point, all of a sudden, they're all talking to each other
It's weird to see a cat walking on hind legs in a lab experiment.
Most particle interactions are one-on-one. They interact with one or the other if you add a third. They all interact at the same time.
The scientists could eventually imagine running hundreds or thousands of notes through a single qubit, but they only tested up to five notes at a time. Schuster says: "If you wanted to build a quantum computer with 1000 bits and you could control all of them through a single bit, that would be very valuable."
Researchers are excited about the behavior. The researchers hope that the discovery can be used to model complex physical phenomena that can't be seen on Earth, such as black holes.
Experiments are fun beyond that.
It's normal for quantum interactions to take place over a long period of time. We can see the effect of the interaction as we measure single photons in our notes. The co-first author of the paper is an assistant professor at Rutgers University.
The Institute of Semiconductors at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is one of the additional authors.
The University of Chicago Materials Research Science and Engineering Center received funding from a number of sources.
The University of Chicago is in the state of Illinois.
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