![]() The photons traveling between qubits serve as intermediaries and allow the qubits to interact. They then investigated what happens when there are multiple qubits added to a circuit full of microwaves. The right-side image above shows such a state with the darker coloring showing where the photon is most likely to be found around the qubit represented by the grey dot. The team predicts that the size of special quantum states in which a photon is attached to a particular qubit-a bound state-will be limited by the curved space in a way that doesn’t happen in flat space. The researchers first looked at how the microwaves and a single qubit in the circuit can combine. “We are asking, ‘What type of physics emerges there and what type of interactions are possible?’” “In this paper, we asked the question, ‘What happens when you add qubits to the photons living on those hyperbolic lattices?’” Bienias says. With proper care, this type of simulation will provide a peek into how negatively curved spaces are a foundation for an entirely new world of physics. But other aspects of the physics, like the proportion of states that photons occupy at a given shared total energy, will be strongly influenced by the edge. The team found that certain properties, like how likely a qubit is to release a photon, shouldn’t be dramatically impacted by the circuit’s edge. So the team identified situations where the circuits should reflect the reality of an infinite curved space despite the circuit’s edge and situations where future researchers will have to interpret results carefully. This is especially important for hyperbolic lattices because they have nearly the same number of sites on the edge of the lattice as inside. In particular, the edges that must exist on the physical circuits used in the simulations must be carefully considered since scientists are often interested in an edgeless, infinite curved space. “Here we have a system where this curvature is huge and it's very exciting to see how it influences the physics.”įor researchers to use these simulations they need a detailed understanding of how the simulations represent a curved space and even more importantly under what situations the simulation fails. “This is a new frontier in tabletop experiments studying effects of curvature on physical phenomena,” says first author Przemyslaw Bienias, a former JQI assistant research scientist who is now working for Amazon Web Services as a Quantum Research Scientist. Specifically, they considered the addition of qubits that change between two quantum states when they absorb or release a microwave photon-an individual quantum particle of the microwaves that course through the circuit. They’ve laid a theoretical framework for adding qubits-the basic building blocks of quantum computers-to serve as matter in a curved space made of a circuit full of flowing microwaves. 3, 2022, the same collaboration between the groups of JQI Fellows Alicia Kollár and Alexey Gorshkov, who is also Fellow of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, expands the potential applications of the technique to include simulating more intricate physics. Now, in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters on Jan. Our three-dimensional world doesn’t even have enough space for a two-dimensional negatively curved space. In particular, the team looked at hyperbolic lattices that represent spaces-called negatively curved spaces-that have more space than can fit in our everyday “flat” space. ![]() A previous collaboration between researchers at JQI explored using labyrinthine circuits made of superconducting resonators to simulate the physics of certain curved spaces (see the previous story for additional background information and motivation of this line of research). ![]() Understanding curved spaces is important to expanding our knowledge of the universe, but it is fiendishly difficult to study curved spaces in a lab setting (even using simulations). Something as straightforward as defining a straight line requires careful consideration. When space curves (as happens dramatically near a black hole), sizes and directions defy normal intuition. One of the mind-bending ideas that physicists and mathematicians have come up with is that space itself-not just objects in space-can be curved.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |