Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], December 21 (ANI): Sitapur Police on Tuesday filed an FIR against 2 persons in a case of alleged forced religious conversion in Uttar Pradesh.

According to the police, 2 Indians and four Brazil nationals organised a programme in Shahbajpur Village and allegedly lured people to change their religion.

Additional SP (South) said the police have sought arrangements to send Brazilians back to their country.

Further investigation is also underway in the case.

In October this year, Uttar Pradesh Police had lodged an FIR against nine people for alleged forced conversions to Christianity in Meerut.

The complaint was registered under sections of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

In another earlier instance, Rajasthan minister Pratap Khachariyawas had said the government was probing the alleged assault on a Dalit family in a village of Baran district of the state after reports emerged that some people from the community had converted to Buddhism following the incident.

If any poor, backward or Dalit faces any kind of crime, it is our responsibility is to raise our voice against that. We are getting the matter investigated, Khachariyawas had said earlier, after reports that 250 people of the Dalit community in Baran had allegedly converted to Buddhism. (ANI)

This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

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Uttar Pradesh : 2 booked for forced religious conversion in Sitapur - ThePrint

BY ANJAN ROY

China appears to have made a planned and heavy intrusion in the areas close to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh last week, which were repulsed bythe Indian army forthwith. The Chinese have repeatedly forayed into the area to make gains in Arunachal Pradesh near Tawang.This is critical for China because Tawang is the seat of one of the most revered monasteries in Tibetan Buddhism. As a result, Tawangmonastery plays a critical role in Tibetan internal politics. Therefore, Chinas efforts are to get control of the area and the Tawang monastery tocontrol more effectively Tibets internal politics.One has to remember that the Tibetan religious head, Dalai Lama, had come to Tawang and sought his first refuge in the monastery. Ever since,Dalai Lama is a continuing pain in Chinas neck.Now that Dalai Lama is getting old and a new spiritual head will have to be sworn in after the present Dalai Lama, China is seeking to ensure thatits nominee becomes the new Dalai Lama. Getting control of the Tawang monastery before that could give some legitimacy for Chinas selection ofthe next spiritual head for Tibetan Buddhists.

These issues apart, China has been nibbling at the line of actual control the so-called LAC off and on and has already claimed somevictories. China has thus sliced away from Indias part of the border over the years through these small incursions.It is only now that that the Indian aide has reacted vigorously to the Chinese tactics. The Galwan valley incident, in which 20 Indian soldiers haddied and some unknown numbers of the Chinese, was the biggest incident recently.But, last weeks Chinese attempt to capture some high grounds in the areas, only 25 kilometres from Tawang, is the most ambitious anddetermined attempt.. This time, when the winter had set in, the sudden sweep was meant to take possession of grounds to set up an observationpost, according to some reports.In Galwan valley as well, China was seeking to acquire lands on Indian side to set up observation posts. Chinese have already setup somevillages in the areas adjoining the border, which can quickly be turned into supply bases for the Chinese army. In Yangtze area near Tawang, theChinese were working with the same objective in mind. With the observation posts the Chinese could better monitor the Indian positions as well asmovements. They are interested in tracking Indian preparations in the border areas.The Chinese have so far downplayed the incident apart from a brief mention in the Chinese foreign ministry briefing. This they did only after thestatement of the defence minister, Rajnath Singh, in parliament subsequent to the incident.The Chinese foreign ministry is seeking to pass this off as incursions by the Indian army personnel across the LAC. This is understandable sincethe Chinese are seeking now to modify their image. Chinese threats to south east Asian countries and the entire South China Sea has sent alarmbells across the region.Its earlier practice of world warriors, who were the hostile diplomats belching fire over alleged insults to China, had given a very unwelcomepicture of the country. After election of Xi Jinping at the 2oth party Congress in November, it appears China is taking some care to project a morefavourable picture of the country.The release of the details of last weeks incidents by India, has been to vindicate governments claims of wrong handling of all border incursions.India seems to be taking the Chinese threats seriously and expects these to continue in future as well.It appears the political circles deliberately highlighted the episode as the Indian army had acted swiftly and gained the upper hand over theChinese. The Indian opposition parties had all along criticised the government for its lukewarm responses to Chinese incursions.This time the political set up had some advantages in showing off the robust responses to the incursions. The Indian army was better prepared forthe sudden eruption of violence.Along with this incidence, some videos have gone viral in the social media, depicting some face-offs between Indian soldiers and the Chinese.The videos depict the two sides fighting with lathis and rods in the hills, surrounded by green forests around.The videos show Indian soldiers beating the Chinese who then retreat followed by the Indian army personnel. Thereafter, the Indian roar invictory and some structures are demolished.The videos have now gone viral in the international media and showing the apparent victory of the Indian side. The videos had made firstappearance in Indian social media.For whatever reasons and results, border clashes with China are expected to continue. The silver lining is that these have remained confined tolocal levels. Eruption of these on a larger scale could make things rather difficult to control, as has been seen in the disastrous Russian campaign inUkraine.

(IPA Service)

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China Is Interested In The Buddhist Monastery In Tawang For Its ... - The Northlines

Thai temples held prayers and senior leaders including the prime minister visited a hospital on Friday to wish a quick recovery for the eldest child of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who collapsed earlier in the week with a heart condition.

Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44, lost consciousness early on Wednesday in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima and was flown by helicopter to Chulalongkorn hospital in Bangkok after her condition stabilized to a certain level, the palace said in a statement on Thursday.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

There was no further official update of her condition on Friday.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and many senior officials, politicians and religious leaders visited Chulalongkorn hospital on Friday to lay orange flowers, the colour associated with the princess, and sign a book of well wishes.

Thailands Buddhist Supreme Patriarch, Somdet Phra Ariyavangsagatayana has requested all Thai temples at home and abroad to conduct special daily chanting sessions for the princess, an official announcement from the National Office of Buddhism said.

The princess is one of three children of King Vajiralongkorn who has a formal title, making her eligible for the throne under a 1924 Palace Law of Succession and the countrys constitution.

The king has yet to formally designate an heir since becoming king in 2016, and there has been no official discussion on the prospect of the princess taking the throne.

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Miracle three-year-old child survived Thailand massacre asleep under blanket

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Prayers in Thailand for kings hospitalized daughter - Al Arabiya English

Ten years after the events of Avatar, James Cameron takes us back to Pandora with Avatar: The Way of Water and follows Jake Sully and Neytiris family, along with the Omaticaya clan. Their eldest is Neteyam. Then there is Loak. Their youngest is Tuk. Their adopted daughter, Kira, is born of Dr. Grace Augustines Avatar. In addition to that, theyve adopted a human named Spider, who was abandoned in Hells Gate after the evacuation of the Sky People. Their peaceful life is interrupted by said Sky People who are back there to not just re-colonize the exoplanetary moon but also to destroy its water bodies. And with the return of Quaritch and his entire platoon as Recombinants (Avatars that are loaded with the characters memories and skills) who are out for revenge because of their previous defeat, the Sullys are forced to run to the Metkayina clan and seek refuge.

Major Spoilers Ahead

In Avatar, Quaritch tasked Jake Sully with knowing everything that he could about the Navi and reporting back to him so that he could take his army and decimate their Home Tree, thereby allowing the RDA (Resources Development Administration) to get all the unobtanium they wanted. Jake Sully obviously betrayed him, as he sided with the Omaticaya because he respected their lifestyle and fell in love with Neytiri. During the final moments of that film, Quaritch nearly killed Jake Sully by destroying the link unit (the device that allows a human to link up with their Avatar) he was in. But Neytiri shot Quaritch up with arrows and killed him, saving Jake Sully. Now, while Jake entered his Avatar permanently during the events of the first film, Selfridge sent the genetic coding of Quaritch and his crew to Earth so that their Avatar could be ready for deployment in the off chance that they died. Since they did die, Quaritch wants to use his mission to pacify the hostile parties who are attacking RDA trains and helicopters to exact revenge against the couple.

When Sullys kids sneak up on Quaritch and his team, he captures them to bait the Sullys. Jake, Neteyam, and Neytiri manage to rescue Loak, Tuk, and Kiri. However, Spider falls back, and Quaritch uses his familial ties with him (yes, Spider is apparently Quaritchs son) to coerce Spider into helping him track the Sullys. He learns the ways of the Navi to become more like Jake and Neytiri and beat them at their own game. By doing so, Cameron and his team of writers expertly contrast Quaritchs arc in this film with Jakes arc in the first film. You see, both of them are jarheads, and they want to learn more about the Navi. But while Jakes educational process allows him to empathize with life on Pandora, Quaritch doesnt. He just sees it as a means to an end. And that proves that putting a person in an Avatar and teaching him about indigenous culture isnt necessarily going to make them a rebel. That quality has to be in their blood and psyche, which can then be amplified with some guidance. If you are blinded by your bigotry, youll be nothing more than a wolf in sheeps clothing.

See More: Avatar: The Way Of Water Characters, Explained: What Ideologies Do The Sullys, Quaritch & Metkayina Have?

The Metkayina are an ocean-based Navi tribe who live on the shores of Awaatulu in huts that are interconnected with webbed passages. They have a chief leader, Tonowari, and a Tsahk, Ronal, who look over the clan. Their hue of blue is lighter than that of the Omaticayans. They have a Spirit Tree, much like the Tree of Souls or the Tree of Voices. Their hands are broader, and their tails are like fins to help them swim swiftly in the water. The Omaticayans use horses and the Metkayinans use a creature called the ilu for short-distance travel. The Omaticayans have the ikran, and the Mekayinans have the Tsurak, which have the ability to fly for short periods of time and then swim at high velocities in the water. Theres a wing-shaped fish in the waters that can latch onto a swimmers back and allow them to breathe for longer periods of time. And then there are the whale-like creatures called the Tulkuns, which migrate in herds and serve as soul siblings to the Metkayinans. However, since these Tulkuns are being hunted by the Sky People, they arent coming to Awaatulu, which the Metkayinans probably see as a bad omen. Since Jake Sully and his family, with the exception of Neytiri, are technically hybrids and not really Navi, they are treated harshly. That said, Jake reacts to it in a humble fashion and tries his best to win Tonowari and Ronals trust.

Coming back to the Tulkun, the reason they are being hunted by the Sky People is that they have a special gland in the base of their skull that secretes a serum that stops aging in humans. So, you can only imagine how valuable it is. And the serum is called Amrita. Now, that term may seem random. However, if you have knowledge of South Asian mythology, youll know that its a reference to the drink of the gods, which apparently gave them immortality. When they were cursed by the sage Durvasa, the gods took the help of their rivals, the asuras, and churned the ocean to attain a pitcher of this amrita. The asuras tried to take it, but the Hindu god Vishnu attained the form of the siren called Mohini to prevent that from happening. Mohini was given the task of distributing the amrita, and she used that opportunity to behead the demon Rahu, give all the nectar to the gods (to help them reclaim their immortality), and then battle the asuras. In Sikhism, amrita is the liquid thats drunk by Sikhs to become a part of the Khalsa. Theravada Buddhism defines amrita as the nectar that frees one from natural processes like birth, death, grief, etc. Chinese Buddhism sees any blessed water or food as amrita. And in Vajrayana Buddhism, amrita is an important part of all religious rituals. That means two things: James Cameron and his team have done mythological research, and out of all those definitions, I think those that describe amrita as the anti-aging juice are the ones that are relevant to The Way of Water.

So why is all this stuff that Ive just said about Quaritch, Jake, the Metkayinans, and the Tulkun important to the ending of the film? Well, because it shows how important it is to have perspective. Quaritch treats the Avatar body and sees the ways of the Navi as a means to get to Jake and kill him. Jake respects his Navi status and is doing everything in his power to protect his family, even if it means giving up the position of chief and following the orders of another. The Metkayinans see the Tulkun as one of their own and the Sullys as outsiders, despite the similarities they share. The Sky People treat the Tulkun as a commodity and treat them as disrespectfully as they treat the Navi or Pandora itself. And then theres Kiri and Loak, who rebel against every preconceived notion and find new aspects of the Tulkun and the Metkayinan habitat that probably no one knew about. The reason behind it is pretty obvious. Loak feels like an outcast among his own because he fails to live up to Jakes expectations, who wants him to be more like his eldest, Neteyam. Kiris mystical connection with Eywa makes her look air-headed, distant, and weak. However, they dont let everyones perception of them define who they are. They choose their own path.

Loak befriends a Tulkun called Payakan, who has been wrongfully outcast for killing other Tulkuns. Payakan uses the gland that the Sky People use to get the amrita to link up with Loak and show him the real culprits (yes, its the humans who killed the other Tulkuns, not Payakan). That proves to be a game changer because when Quaritch kidnaps Sullys kids as well as Tsireya (Ronal and Tonowaris daughter) and puts them in a Manta Ray-like ship, Payakan arrives to turn the tides in the Navis favor. But it isnt enough to truly get rid of Quaritch and his crew. So, Jake, Neytiri, and Neteyam actively attack the ship. Neteyam is the one who manages to get Loak, Tsireya, and Spider out of there but gets shot in the process. His death spurs Loak into action, and he saves his father after his deadly battle with Quaritch. As for Kiri, when she gets separated from Neytiri and Tuk, who get trapped in an inescapable section of the ship, she taps into her connection with Eywa, which she evidently had all this time. That allows her to create an escape route with the help of the luminescent fishes and take her mother and her sister to safety. The editing of this scene sends the message that a parents sole purpose shouldnt be to protect because that sounds exhausting. Instead, they should learn to relinquish control and let their children protect and guide them through their darkest hours. FYI, Spider does something similar by saving an injured and drowning Quaritch because he cares about their familial bond, and hes wary of the fact that, when push comes to shove, Neytiri wont treat him as one of her children. However, he reunites with the Sullys, where hes welcomed by Kiri and Jake.

Neteyam is buried as per the Metkayina culture, where his body is consumed by a field of seagrass. Jake Sully goes to Tonowari to let him know that he and his family will be leaving Awaatulu the following day because he knows that Quaritch will come after him and destroy everything around him. The oceanic Navi tribes whose homes got torched didnt give up Jakes location because Tonowari told them not to. And Jake definitely doesnt want anything like that to happen again. But Tonowari says that hes part of the Metkayina now and that he and his family are more than welcome to stay there. This decision can be motivated by Tonowaris prolonged neutrality, which has allowed the Sky People to encroach on the seas, and his latest realization that being non-confrontational wont keep them safe. Tonowari knows that Jake Sully and Neytiri have faced and defeated the Sky People before. So, if they want to defeat the latest wave of human colonizers, the Metkayina will need their guidance. Also, the family has just lost their son. You cant just tell them to go on the run after that. And, yes, Jake and Neytiri accept Tonowaris offer. They use the Spirit Tree to meet Neteyam one last time and decide to make their stand against the Sky People from there.

Unlike Avatar, The Way of Water concludes with a personal battle between Quaritch and Jake Sully. In Avatar, what we saw was the final stage of years of colonization. In The Way of Water, we see the earliest stages of the latest insurrection. So, it makes sense that James Cameron and his team have focused on establishing a central rivalry and giving us an idea of what itll take to actually defeat the enemy. Apart from that, the sequels will probably unravel the mystery surrounding Kiris father, who has to be very powerful, spiritually speaking. As far as I know, Dr. Augustine never exhibited powers where shed manipulate the environment of Pandora. Therefore, Kiris powers must have come from her father. Itll be interesting to see how Neytiri, Spider, and Quaritchs dynamic is going to unfold. Jake has accepted Spider as a son. However, Neytiri was and will be on the fence about it, especially after trying to kill him. And thats bound to have some kind of impact on Spiders psyche. Quaritchs newfound sense of humanity is also going to play a major role, and maybe hes going to try to bring Spider over to his side, which will make the rivalry between the heroes and the villains all the more complicated. But, hey, who wants to see simple stuff? James Cameron is free to bring on all the complexity he and his team can muster.

See More: Avatar 3 Expectations & Theories: Who Was The Seed Bearer? Will We See Frankenstein Uses Of Amrita?

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'Avatar: The Way Of Water' Ending, Explained: How Did Kiri And Lo ... - DMT

Quantum computing could prove to be a game changer if it works. (Getty images)

To discuss the state of quantum computing and its military applications, we talked with Joe Altepeter, a program manager in DARPAs Defense Sciences Office (DSO). Altepeter manages two of DARPAs three main quantum programs including the (US2QC) program, which is about uncovering new, novel, and overlooked avenues in quantum exploration.

Breaking Defense: Quantum computing is talked about as something that can be both offensive in the sense that it has the capability to break all known encryption, and defensive to prevent adversaries from breaking US encryption. Which is the priority for the US government? Or is it both?

Joe Altepeter is program manager of DARPAs quantum program called Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing.

Altepeter: Im going to choose secret option number three. The interest in quantum computers took off in 1995 when Peter Shor discovered an algorithm for efficiently factoring large numbers. Im not an encryption expert, but I dont think that breaks all kinds of encryption, though it certainly breaks some like RSA. Thats why NIST and agencies like that are developing alternative means of encryption that are resistant to the kinds of quantum attacks that youre talking about.

At DARPA, our mandate is to eliminate strategic surprise. While people have been thinking about quantum computers and factoring for decades now, were interested in the next application which might take us all by surprise and lead to a computing revolution. Were interested in [knowing if there] are there other surprising uses of quantum computers.

If we can build a quantum computer, will it really change how we think about computing and revolutionize computing disciplines? Or will it not really do anything that a classic supercomputer couldnt do? The corollary to that is, lets assume it is going to be revolutionary. These computers are really hard to build. Is there a surprising path to build one that the conventional quantum-computing community might have overlooked that DARPA needs to find out [about] this path is going to work?

Of the 10 smartest physicists I know, about half of them are convinced that quantum computers are going to totally revolutionize computing in the 21st century and be a revolutionary way to solve problems from material science, to chemistry, to mathematics, to optimization. The other half are convinced that it will never do anything that a regular or classical computer wont be able to do.

When I think about strategic surprise, its hard for me to think of a discipline that has more potential for surprise than one where we think that its somewhere between totally revolutionary and totally useless. Its somewhere in that zone. DARPA wants to try to bring some clarity to that question.

DARPA says many physicists think quantum computing is revolutionary. Others think it wont be much better than todays supercomputers. Shown is a Cray supercomputer at NASAs Lewis Research Center in 2009. (NASA.)

Breaking Defense: What is the status of quantum in the DoD now? Is it still only in the realm of DARPA and the other research agencies?

Altepeter: As far as I know, the DoD doesnt use quantum computers for any real problems right now. However, quantum computers, and particularly the ones that are being developed in the commercial industry, have done some amazing, near miraculous stuff. Its been shown that quantum computers can now do calculations that are totally impossible for any classical computer anywhere on earth to do.

You and your readers might be thinking, that certainly sounds like its useful that they can do something thats totally impossible for anything else to do. At this point, quantum computers are being used for proof-of-principle problems that show we can do something that nothing else can do, but we havent taken that next step of bending that computing power to a useful problem that we really need an answer to.

For the DoD, that means having an effect in the field, doing something we care about. Theres a lot of tantalizing pathways. If we keep getting better quantum computers and we better understand how to bend them against the problems we care about, maybe we can solve corrosion resistance and save the Navy billions of dollars maintaining their ships. Maybe we can come up with better pharmaceuticals and significantly reduce the cost of the drugs we need to care for our people. Maybe we can solve optimization problems and significantly increase the efficiency of everything were doing.

That said, from my perspective, we dont have a clear path of how to solve those yet. The reason that DARPA is stepping in is to try to help get clarity on what is the link and how hard is it going to be, if we can at all, connect the really miraculous machines that we have and well have in the next few years with the problems that the DoD really cares about.

Breaking Defense: When I read the background on DARPAs three quantum computing programs, I was particularly interested in US2QC because of its mission to speed up quantum development through unexplored avenues. Describe the program.

Altepeter: Theres a lot of hype in this space, which is understandable because people are excited about the potential for this technology. But it makes it hard to tell whats for real and what isnt. Particularly when theres a lot of commercial companies pursuing this technology, dozens of them.

Understandably, a lot of the secret sauce, the things that make their approaches work, are kept as trade secrets. But DARPA is interested in understanding approaches which are different from things that weve pursued in the past.

We put out a call that said: if youre a company, university, or organization and think you have found the solution to build a big, powerful quantum computer and you think youre on the path to do so, we would like to give you an opportunity to prove it. Well put together a validation team of some of the best experts in and around government and work with you to give you enough funding so that you wont be slowed down.

We can provide a lot of value to these organizations by being a neutral third party to ask hard questions. We think that they can provide value to DARPA in its primary mission, which is to avoid being surprised if there really is a fantastic route out there that doesnt look like what weve tried before to get to a working quantum computer.

Breaking Defense: Through what means are you trying to speed up quantum development software, chips, AI?

Altepeter: Up until now, for the past 20 years or so, many organizations [though] not all of them, have been focused on trying to prove that this isnt all just the realm of imagination, that it really is possible to build quantum computers that can do things that are impossible for any other computer to do. Weve met that milestone as a society.

The biggest next step is to start focusing on the end goal. Instead of focusing on whether it is possible to make next years computers twice as quantum as this years computers, we need to look ahead. Maybe its decades away, but what computational capability would be a game changer for the DoD, for the commercial space? What would help us fight climate change? What would make the world a better place?

Focusing on that goal and not just saying that it would really be great if we had better batteries or didnt have to worry about corrosion on Navy ships. But instead saying, I want this specific computational capability to calculate the structure of this molecule or this material at this scale with these parameters. If I could do that, Id have a much better chance of inventing something thats going to help the DoD in the field, in real life.

If thats our goal, if were trying to get to the moon, we have to stop measuring progress by how high the planes are flying. Weve got to figure out whats the R&D path, what are the metrics, whats the plan thats really going to get us there?

From my perspective, its not a particular chip, its not a particular type of interconnect, its not getting a CPU speed up to a certain amount. Its focusing on our shared goal and then deriving what are the most important pieces that we want to make a DARPA-style push to improve.

Breaking Defense: Final thoughts?

Altepeter: DARPA is not convinced that quantum is going to be a revolutionary capability. Were also not a skeptic who thinks that quantums definitely not going to work. We want to go in with a clear-eyed view and do a rigorous evaluation to see where and how and on what path quantum can make the DoDs capabilities better, and can really make the world a better place. Thats what were trying to do, not prejudge the outcome, but take a hard look and see what we learn and reduce strategic surprise in this space.

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DARPA's explorations in quantum computing search for the art of the possible in the realm of the improbable - Breaking Defense

Time: it's constantly running out and we never have enough of it. Some say its an illusion, some say it flies like an arrow. Well, this arrow of time is a big headache in physics. Why does time have a particular direction? And can such a direction be reversed?

A study, published in Scientific Reports, is providing an important point of discussion on the subject. An international team of researchers has constructed a time-reversal program on a quantum computer, in an experiment that has huge implications for our understanding of quantum computing. Their approach also revealed something rather important: the time-reversal operation is so complex that it is extremely improbable, maybe impossible, for it to happen spontaneously in nature.

As far as laws of physics go, in many cases, theres nothing to stop us going forward and backward in time. In certain quantum systems it is possible to create a time-reversal operation. Here, the team crafted a thought experiment based on a realistic scenario.

The evolution of a quantum system is governed by Schrdingers Equation, which gives us the probability of a particle being in a certain region. Another important law of quantum mechanics is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which tells us that we cannot know the exact position and momentum of a particle because everything in the universe behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time.

The researchers wanted to see if they could get time to spontaneously reverse itself for one particle for just the fraction of a second. They use the example of a cue breaking a billiard ball triangle and the balls going in all directions a good analog for the second law of thermodynamics, an isolated system will always go from order to chaos and then having the balls reverse back into order.

The team set out to test if this can happen, both spontaneously in nature and in the lab. Their thought experiment started with a localized electron, which means they were pretty sure of its position in a small region of space. The laws of quantum mechanics make knowing this with precision difficult. The idea is to have the highest probability that the electron is within a certain region. This probability "smears" out as times goes on, making it more likely for the particle to be in a wider region. The researchers then suggest a time-reversal operation to bring the electron back to its localization. The thought experiment was followed up by some real math.

The researchers estimated the probability of this happening to a real-world electron due to random fluctuations. If we were to observe 10 billion freshly localized electrons every second over the entire lifetime of the universe (13.7 billion years), we would only see it happen once. And it would merely take the quantum state back one 10-billionth of a second into the past, roughly the time it takes between a traffic light turning green and the person behind you honking.

While time reversal is unlikely to happen in nature, it is possible in the lab. The team decided to simulate the localized electron idea in a quantum computer and create a time-reversal operation that would bring it back to the original state. One thing that was clear was this; the bigger the simulation got, the more complex (and less accurate) it became. In a two quantum-bit (qubit) setup simulating the localized electron, researchers were able to reverse time in 85 percent of the cases. In a three-qubit setup, only 50 percent of the cases were successful, and more errors occurred.

While time reversal programs in quantum computers are unlikely to lead to a time machine (Deloreans are better suited for that), it might have some important applications in making quantum computers more precise in the future.

This article was originally published in March 2019.

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Scientists Have Reversed Time Inside A Quantum Computer, And The Implications Are Huge - IFLScience

The story so far: The allure of quantum computers (QC) is their ability to take advantage of quantum physics to solve problems too complex for computers that use classical physics. The 2022 Nobel Prize for physics was awarded for work that rigorously tested one such experience and paved the way for its applications in computing which speaks to the contemporary importance of QCs. Several institutes, companies and governments have invested in developing quantum-computing systems, from software to solve various problems to the electromagnetic and materials science that goes into expanding their hardware capabilities. In 2021 alone, the Indian government launched a National Mission to study quantum technologies with an allocation of 8,000 crore; the army opened a quantum research facility in Madhya Pradesh; and the Department of Science and Technology co-launched another facility in Pune. Given the wide range of applications, understanding what QCs really are is crucial to sidestep the misinformation surrounding it and develop expectations that are closer to reality.

A macroscopic object like a ball, a chair or a person can be at only one location at a time; this location can be predicted accurately; and the objects effects on its surroundings cant be transmitted faster than at the speed of light. This is the classical experience of reality.

For example, you can observe a ball flying through the air and plot its trajectory according to Newtons laws. You can predict exactly where the ball will be at a given time. If the ball strikes the ground, you will see it doing so in the time it takes light to travel through the atmosphere to you.

Quantum physics describes reality at the subatomic scale, where the objects are particles like electrons. In this realm, you cant pinpoint the location of an electron. You can only know that it will be present in a given volume of space, with a probability attached to each point in the volume like 10% at point A and 5% at point B. When you probe this volume in a stronger way, you might find the electron at point B. If you repeatedly probe this volume, you will find the electron at point B 5% of the time.

There are many interpretations of the laws of quantum physics. One is the Copenhagen interpretation, which Erwin Schrdinger popularised using a thought-experiment he devised in 1935. There is a cat in a closed box with a bowl of poison. There is no way to know whether the cat is alive or dead without opening the box. In this time, the cat is said to exist in a superposition of two states: alive and dead. When you open the box, you force the superposition to collapse to a single state. The state to which it collapses depends on the probability of each state.

Similarly, when you probe the volume, you force the superposition of the electrons states to collapse to one depending on the probability of each state. (Note: This is a simplistic example to illustrate a concept.)

The other experience relevant to quantum-computing is entanglement. When two particles are entangled and then separated by an arbitrary distance (even more than 1,000 km), making an observation on one particle, and thus causing its superposition to collapse, will instantaneously cause the superposition of the other particle to collapse as well. This phenomenon seems to violate the notion that the speed of light is the universes ultimate speed limit. That is, the second particles superposition will collapse to a single state in less than three hundredths of a second, which is the time light takes to travel 1,000 km. (Note: The many worlds interpretation has been gaining favour over the Copenhagen interpretation. Here, there is no collapse, automatically removing some of these puzzling problems.)

The bit is the fundamental unit of a classical computer. Its value is 1 if a corresponding transistor is on and 0 if the transistor is off. The transistor can be in one of two states at a time on or off so a bit can have one of two values at a time, 0 or 1.

The qubit is the fundamental unit of a QC. Its typically a particle like an electron. (Google and IBM have been known to use transmons, where pairs of bound electrons oscillate between two superconductors to designate the two states.) Some information is directly encoded on the qubit: if the spin of an electron is pointing up, it means 1; when the spin is pointing down, it means 0.

But instead of being either 1 or 0, the information is encoded in a superposition: say, 45% 0 plus 55% 1. This is entirely unlike the two separate states of 0 and 1 and is a third kind of state.

The qubits are entangled to ensure they work together. If one qubit is probed to reveal its state, so will some of or all the other qubits, depending on the calculation being performed. The computers final output is the state to which all the qubits have collapsed.

One qubit can encode two states. Five qubits can encode 32 states. A computer with N qubits can encode 2N states whereas a computer with N transistors can only encode 2 N states. So a qubit-based computer can access more states than a transistor-based computer, and thus access more computational pathways and solutions to more complex problems.

Researchers have figured out the basics and used QCs to model the binding energy of hydrogen bonds and simulate a wormhole model. But to solve most practical problems, like finding the shape of an undiscovered drug, autonomously exploring space or factoring large numbers, they face some fractious challenges.

A practical QC needs at least 1,000 qubits. The current biggest quantum processor has 433 qubits. There are no theoretical limits on larger processors; the barrier is engineering-related.

Qubits exist in superposition in specific conditions, including very low temperature (~0.01 K), with radiation-shielding and protection against physical shock. Tap your finger on the table and the states of the qubit sitting on it could collapse. Material or electromagnetic defects in the circuitry between qubits could also corrupt their states and bias the eventual result. Researchers are yet to build QCs that completely eliminate these disturbances in systems with a few dozen qubits.

Error-correction is also tricky. The no-cloning theorem states that its impossible to perfectly clone the states of a qubit, which means engineers cant create a copy of a qubits states in a classical system to sidestep the problem. One way out is to entangle each qubit with a group of physical qubits that correct errors. A physical qubit is a system that mimics a qubit. But reliable error-correction requires each qubit to be attached to thousands of physical qubits.

Researchers are also yet to build QCs that dont amplify errors when more qubits are added. This challenge is related to a fundamental problem: unless the rate of errors is kept under a certain threshold, more qubits will only increase the informational noise.

Practical QCs will require at least lakhs of qubits, operating with superconducting circuits that were yet to build apart from other components like the firmware, circuit optimisation, compilers and algorithms that make use of quantum-physics possibilities. Quantum supremacy itself a QC doing something a classical computer cant is thus at least decades away.

The billions being invested in this technology today are based on speculative profits, while companies that promise developers access to quantum circuits on the cloud often offer physical qubits with noticeable error rates.

The interested reader can build and simulate rudimentary quantum circuits using IBMs Quantum Composer in the browser.

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Explained | The challenges of quantum computing - The Hindu

Wormholes were first conceived of by Albert Einstein and his fellow physicist Nathan Rosen in 1935, who argued that general relativity allowed for a bridge between two black holes. At the same time, Einstein and Rosen, working with their colleague Boris Podolsky, questioned the quantum mechanics view of reality via a paradox that later researchers dubbed entanglement. These two ideas were brought together in 2013, when Leonard Susskind at Stanford and Juan Malcadena at Princeton argued that wormholes and entanglement are, in fact, the same thing. Three years later, Daniel Jafferis at Harvard and his graduate student Ping Gao proposed a way to traverse a wormhole. This idea was validated this year when a team of physicists led by Maria Spiropulu of the California Institute of Technology built a small-scale wormhole inside a quantum computer. Their experiment was a major breakthrough the culmination of creative experimentation, emerging quantum computing technology and more than a century of speculation and research. And, as this short documentary from Quanta Magazine explores, in strengthening a link between black holes and quantum entanglement, it may have marked a massive step forward in the quest to bridge the worlds of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

Read more here:

The tangled tale of how physicists built a groundbreaking wormhole in a lab - Aeon

To hear some tell it, quantum computing progress will soon stall, ushering in a "quantum winter" when big companies ice their development programs and investors stop lavishing investments on startups.

"Winter is coming," Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist and author working for the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, said in a November video. "This bubble of inflated promises will eventually burst. It's just a matter of time."

There are signs she's right. In 2022, quantum computing hit a rough patch, with share prices plunging for the three publicly traded companies specializing in the potentially revolutionary technology. Startups seeking strength in numbers are banding together, a consolidation trend with eight mergers so far by the reckoning of Global Quantum Intelligence analysts.

But you'd have been hard pressed to find a whiff of pessimism at Q2B, a December conference about the business of quantum computing. Industry players showed continued progress toward practical quantum computers, Ph.D.-equipped researchers from big business discussed their work, and one study showed declining worries about a research and investment freeze.

"I don't think there will be a quantum winter, but some people will get frostbite," Global Quantum Intelligence analyst Doug Finke said at Q2B.

Quantum computing relies on the weird rules of atomic-scale physics to perform calculations out of reach of conventional computers like those that power today's phones, laptops and supercomputers. Large-scale, powerful quantum computers remain years away.

But progress is encouraging, because it's getting harder to squeeze more performance out of conventional computers. Even though quantum computers can't do most computing jobs, they hold strong potential for changing our lives, enabling better batteries, speeding up financial calculations, making aircraft more efficient, discovering new drugs and accelerating AI.

Quantum computing executives and researchers are acutely aware of the risks of a quantum winter. They saw what happened with artificial intelligence, a field that spent decades on the sidelines before today's explosion of activity. In Q2B interviews, several said they're working to avoid AI's early problems being overhyped.

"Everyone talks about the AI winter," said Alex Keesling, CEO of quantum computer maker QuEra. "What did we learn? People are trying to adjust their messaging...so that we avoid something like the AI winter with inflated expectations."

Those quantum computing applications emerged over and over at Q2B, a conference organized by quantum computing software and services company QC Ware. Although quantum computers can handle only simple test versions of those examples so far, big companies like JP Morgan Chase, Ford Motor Co., Airbus, BMW, Novo Nordisk, Hyundai and BP are investing in R&D teams and proof-of-concept projects to pave the way.

The corporate efforts typically are paired with hardware and software efforts from startups and big companies like IBM, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Intel with big bets on quantum computing. Underpinning the work is government funding for quantum computing research in the US, France, Germany, China, Australia and other countries.

While conventional computers perform operations on bits that represent either one or zero, quantum computers' fundamental data-processing element, called the qubit, is very different. Qubits can record combinations of zeros and ones through a concept called superposition. And thanks to a phenomenon called entanglement, they can be linked together to accommodate vastly more computing states than classical bits can store at once.

The problem with today's quantum computers is the limited number of qubits -- 433 in IBM's latest Osprey quantum computer -- and their flakiness. Qubits are easily disturbed, spoiling calculations and therefore limiting the number of possible operations. On the most stable quantum computers, there's still a better than one in 1,000 chance a single operation will produce the wrong results, an error rate that's disgracefully high compared with conventional computers. Quantum computing calculations typically are run over and over many times to obtain a statistically useful result.

Today's machines are members of the NISQ era: noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers. It's still not clear whether such machines will ever be good enough for work beyond tests and prototyping.

But all quantum computer makers are headed toward a rosier "fault-tolerant" era in which qubits are better stabilized and ganged together into long-lived "logical" qubits that fix errors to persist longer. That's when the true quantum computing benefits arrive, likely five or more years from now.

Quantum computing faces plenty of challenges on the way to maturity. One of them is hype.

Google's captured attention with its "quantum supremacy" announcement in 2019, in which its machine outpaced conventional computers on an academic task that didn't actually accomplish useful work. John Preskill, a Caltech physicist who's long championed quantum computing, has warned repeatedly about hype. Nowadays, companies are focused on a more pragmatic "quantum advantage" goal of beating a conventional computer on a real-world computing challenge.

The technology could be big and disruptive, and that piqued the interest of investors. Over the past 14 months, three quantum computer makers took their companies to the public markets, taking the faster SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, route rather than a traditional initial public offering.

First was IonQ in October 2021, followed by Rigetti Computing in March and D-Wave Systems on August.

The markets have been unkind to technology companies in recent months, though. IonQ is trading at half its debut price, and D-Wave has dropped about three quarters. Rigetti, trading at about a 10th of its initial price, is losing its founding CEO on Thursday.

Although quantum computer startups haven't failed, some mergers indicate that prospects are rosier if teams band together. Among others, Honeywell Quantum Solutions merged with Cambridge Quantum to form Quantinuum in 2021; Pasqal merged with Qu&Co in 2022; and ColdQuanta -- newly renamed Infleqtion -- acquired Super.tech.

But the reality is that quantum computing hype isn't generally rampant. Over and over at Q2B, quantum computing advocates showed themselves to be measured in their predictions and guarded about promising imminent breakthroughs. Comments that quantum computing will be "bigger than fire" are the exception, not the rule.

Instead, advocates prefer to point to a reasonable track record of steady progress. Quantum computer makers have gradually increased the scale of quantum computers, improved its software and decreased the qubit-perturbing noise that derails calculations. The race to build a quantum computer is balanced against patience and technology road maps that stretch years into the future.

For example, Google achieved its first error correction milestone in 2022, expects its next in 2025 or so, then has two more milestones on its road map before it plans to deliver a truly powerful quantum computer in 2029. Other roadmaps from companies like Quantinuum and IBM are equally detailed.

And new quantum computing efforts keep cropping up. Cloud computing powerhouse Amazon, which started its Braket service with access to others' quantum computers, is now at work on its own machines too. At Q2B, the Novo Nordisk Foundation -- with funding from its Novo Nordisk pharmaceutical company -- announced a plan to fund a quantum computer for biosciences at the University of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark.

It's a long-term plan with an expectation that it'll be able to solve life sciences problems in 2035, said physicist Peter Krogstrup Jeppesen, who left a quantum computing research position at Microsoft to lead the effort.

"They really, really play the long game," said Cathal Mahon, scientific leader at the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Some startups are seeing the frosty investment climate. Raising money today is more challenging, said Asif Sinay, chief executive of Qedma, whose error suppression technology is designed to help squeeze more power out of quantum computers. But he's more sanguine about the situation since he's not looking for investors right now.

Keeping up with technology roadmaps is critical for startups, said Duncan Stewart of the Business Development Bank of Canada, which has invested in quantum computing startups. One of them, Nord Quantique in Quebec, "will live or die based on whether they meet their technical milestones 18 months from now," he said.

But startup difficulties wouldn't cause a quantum winter, Quantinuum Chief Operating Officer Tony Uttley believes. Two scenarios that could trigger a winter, though, are if a big quantum computing company stopped its investments or if progress across the industry stalled, he said.

The quantum computing industry isn't putting all its eggs in one basket. Various designs include trapped ions, superconducting circuits, neutral atoms, electrons on semiconductors and photonic qubits.

"We are not close to a general purpose quantum computer that can perform commercially relevant problems," said Oskar Painter, a physicist leading Amazon Web Services' quantum hardware work. But even as a self-described cynical physicist, he said, "I'm very convinced we're going to get there. I do see the path to doing it."

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Quantum Computing Will Change Our Lives. But Be Patient, Please - CNET

Dec. 19, 2022 Oak Ridge National Laboratorys next major computing achievement could open a new universe of scientific possibilities accelerated by the primal forces at the heart of matter and energy.

The worldsfirst publicly revealed exascale supercomputer kicked off a new generation of computing in May 2022 when scientists at the U.S. Department of Energys ORNL set a record for processing speed. As Frontieropens to full user operations, quantum computing researchers at ORNL and the DOEsQuantum Science Center, or QSC, continue working to integrate classical computing with quantum information science to develop the worlds first functionalquantum computer, which would use the laws of quantum mechanics to tackle challenges beyond even the fastest supercomputers in operation.

We believe that quantum computers will be able to simulate quantum systems that are intractable to simulate with classical methods and thereby advance science that will be foundational for the future economy and national security of the U.S., said Nick Peters, who leads ORNLs Quantum Information Science, or QIS, Section.

The year of that quantum milestone could be like none before at least since 1947. Thats when scientists at Bell Labs invented the transistor, the three-legged electronic semiconductor that ultimately replaced the cumbersome vacuum tubes relied on by computers of the previous generation. The leap in technology enabled the microchip, the electronic calculator and the computing revolution that followed.

Researchers believe they could be approaching a similar pivot point that would kick-start the quantum computing revolution and transform the world again this time with the potential for unprecedented computing horsepower and ultra-secure communications.

The DOEs Office of Science launched the QSC, a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center headquartered at ORNL, in 2020 in part to help speed toward those goals. The QSC combines resources and expertise from national laboratories, universities and industry partners, including ORNL,Los Alamos National Laboratory,Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory,Purdue UniversityandMicrosoft.

Any quantum revolution wont happen all at once.

A lot of people anticipate well have a eureka moment when quantum computing takes over high-performance computing, said ORNLs Travis Humble, director of the QSC. But real scientific progress usually happens slowly and incrementally, in stages you can measure over time. We may now be inching up on that tipping point when quantum computing offers an advantage and a quantum computer surpasses the classical computers weve relied on for so long.

But it wont happen overnight, and its going to take a lot of long, hard work.

The Quantum Shift

Quantum computing uses quantum bits, or qubits, to store and process quantum information. Qubits arent like the bits used by classical computers, which can store only one of two potential values 0 or 1 per bit.

A qubit can exist in more than one state at a time by using quantum superposition, which allows combinations of distinct physical values to be encoded on a single object.

Superposition is like spinning a coin on its edge, Peters said. When its spinning, the coin is neither heads nor tails.

A qubit stores information in a tangible degree of freedom, such as two possible frequency values. Superposition means the qubit, like the spinning coin, can exist in both frequencies at the same time. Measuring the frequency determines the probability of measuring either of the two values, such as a coins likelihood to land on heads or tails.

The more qubits, the greater the possible superposition and degrees of freedom, for an exponentially larger quantum computational framework. That difference could fuel such innovations as vastly more powerful supercomputers, incredibly precise sensors and impenetrably secure communications.

But those superpowers come with a cost. Quantum superposition lasts only as long as a qubit remains unexamined. Only a finite amount of information can be extracted from a qubit once its measured.

When you measure a qubit, you destroy the quantum state and convert it to a single bit of classical information, Peters said. Think about the spinning coin. If you slap your hand down on the coin, it will be either heads or tails, so you get only one classical bit out of the measurement.The trick is to use qubits in the right way, such that the measurement turns into useful classical results.

Finding that trick could deliver huge payoffs. A quantum supercomputer, for example, could use the laws of quantum physics to probe fundamental questions of how matter and energy work, such as what makes certain materials act as superconductors of electricity. Questions like those have so far eluded the best efforts of scientists and existing supercomputing systems likeFrontier, the first exascale supercomputer and fastest in the world, and its predecessors.

A development like this would be such a shift as to be a new tool in the box that we theoretically could use to fix almost anything, Humble said.

But first scientists must answer basic questions about how to make that new tool work. A true quantum computer wont be like any computer thats ever come before.

The great tension right now is this tightrope between quantum computing as an exciting new field of research and these tremendous technical challenges that were not sure how to solve, said Ryan Bennink, who leads ORNLs Quantum Computational Science Group. How do you even think about programming a quantum computer? Everything we know about programming is based on classical computers. Thats why our understanding must be evolutionary. Were building on what others have done with quantum so far, one step at a time.

Those steps include projects supported by ORNLsQuantum Computing User Program, or QCUP. The program awards time on privately owned quantum processors around the country to support independent quantum study. The computers used arent quite what quantum computings advocates have in mind for the revolution.

I wouldnt compare the quantum computers we have now with supercomputers, said Humble, who oversees QCUP. These quantum computers are basically systems we experiment with to show how quantum mechanics can be used to perform simple calculations on test problems. Conventional computers can do most of these calculations easily. The researchers testing these machines are doing the best science to gain insight into how we can make quantum computing work for scientific discovery and innovation.

For a future quantum supercomputer, we need a machine that meets a threshold of accuracy, reliability and sustainability that we just havent seen yet.

Turning Down the Noise

The main obstacle for useful quantum simulations so far has been the relatively high error rate from noise degrading qubit quality. Those kinds of simulations wont be ready for prime time until scientists achieve the same level of real-world consistency and accuracy offered by standard supercomputers.

Qubits acquire these errors just sitting there, Bennink said. Every time we operate the quantum computer, we introduce error. When we read out the values generated by the calculations, we introduce more error. That doesnt mean the simulations are all wrong. We can perform some quantum simulations with an error rate of 1% per operation. But if we need to do 10,000 operations in a simulation, thats going to be more errors than we can fix. So right now, were limited in the operations we can run before the amount of quantum noise renders the results useless. We need to get the error rate below a reliable threshold preferably a tenth of a percent or lower.

Researchers keep inching closer, study by study. A team led by theUniversity of Chicagos Giulia Galli recently used an allocation from QCUP to simulate quantum spin defects in a crystal and balance the error rate to a level deemed acceptable for scientific use.

The results were not perfect, but we were able to cut down the errors to such a point that the results became scientifically useful, Galli said.

Another QCUP study led byArgonne National LaboratorysRuslan Shaydulinused quantum state tomography, which estimates the properties of a quantum state, to correct noise on a study using five qubits and reach a 23% improvement in quantum state fidelity.

We achieved a much larger-scale validation on this hardware with more qubits than had been done before, Shaydulin said. These results put us one step closer to realizing the potential of quantum computers.

As refinements continue, researchers suggest incorporating qubits into larger supercomputing systems might act as a bridge to fully quantum systems. That doesnt mean classical computers would go extinct.

Ultimately, quantum computing will most likely become an essential element in high-performance computing, but its unlikely to replace classical computing altogether, Peters said.

I expect well see the rise of hybrid computing, where classical systems use quantum computing as an accelerator, similar to GPUs in a supercomputer like Frontier. Id even expect hybrid systems to be the primary way we leverage the power of quantum computers as they mature. Algorithm-optimized quantum processors could help simulate parts of problems too challenging for purely classical machines until we find a seamless way to integrate both types of computing.

Connecting the Qubits

The next step from a true quantum computer would be a quantum network and ultimately aquantum internet of such computers that would enable communication through qubits.

Efforts by quantum information scientists at ORNL seek to establish entanglement between remote quantum objects, a process that could be used for computing or for building quantum sensor networks. Along with classical communications, entanglement which means two objects intertwine so closely that one cant be described independently of the other no matter how far apart enables distant users to move quantum information over a network byquantum teleportation, or the transmission of a qubit from one place to another without physical travel through space.

Entanglement is often the key resource needed to carry out a desired quantum application, and it needs to be done in an error-free or nearly error-free way, Peters said. We tend to lose most of the qubits carrying this information as theyre transmitted. Thats a big challenge that requires us to develop quantum repeaters, which you could consider a special type of quantum computer, to correct for loss and other errors.

Ultimately, well need to develop not just new technology but new concepts to make a quantum internet a reality, but entanglement is a necessary step.

Scientists at ORNL and the QSC have made cracking the code to that entanglement a top priority.

Were not committed to a single type of quantum technology, Humble said. We think theres value in variety. Two approaches have emerged as leading favorites so far, but were open to all possibilities.

One approach focuses on harnessing dim beams of light to connect quantum machines for secure and lightning-fast communications.

A light particle, or photon, can exist in two frequencies at a time, like the ability of a qubit to hold more than one value at once. Photons could be used as the vessels for encoding information that could then be transmitted across hundreds or thousands of miles from a satellite to separate ground stations, for example at the speed of light. A cryptographic key based on quantum mechanical principles could be delivered and used to encrypt the messages for virtually unbreakable security.

We already know how to send these light particles over long distances think about a TV or radio signal so now we just need to figure out how to use their inherent properties to encode them and enable networked quantum computing, said Raphael Pooser, an ORNL quantum research scientist. Photons are just pieces of electromagnetic field floating in space, like a pendulum swinging back and forth. That gives us good variables for computing because photons have an infinite number of possible values that would allow us to store large or small amounts of information.

Pairing Photons

As with most aspects of quantum computing, the theorys not easy to put into practice.

The really difficult thing about photons is that they dont interact naturally, said Joe Lukens, senior director of quantum networking atArizona State Universityand a frequent collaborator with ORNL. As Ive heard it stated simply, put two flashlights together, and you have two light beams, not a particle accelerator. The beams just fly past each other. From a computing perspective, you want your qubits to have a high degree of interaction to achieve that necessary entanglement.

ORNLs photonics researchers could be closing in on a way to bring that vision to life. The approach, known as frequency bin coding, focuses on using pulse shapers, which manipulate the frequencies of light waves, and phase modulators, which manipulate photonic oscillation cycles, to encode and entangle particles, imprint them on light beams and then transmit them over optical fiber.

A2020 experimentby Lukens and fellow quantum researchers at Purdue University demonstrated the approach could be used to control frequency bin qubits in an arbitrary manner, laying the groundwork for the types of quantum operations needed in quantum networking.

Thats the basic building block of a quantum computing network, Lukens said. If we put a pulse shaper and phase modulator back to back, in principle we could build any kind of quantum gate for a universal quantum computer.

A2021 studyled by ORNL successfully used photons to share entanglement among three quantum nodes in separate buildings linked by a quantum local area network.

Now we need to figure out how to scale up, Lukens said. There are still a lot of questions about the best path to a quantum network, but I think frequency-based photonics has a good shot.

Promising Platforms

The other main target of ORNLs quantum simulation research focuses on trapping and controlling ions, atoms charged by a loss of electrons. Each ion carries a positive charge that can be used to move the ion around in a radio-frequency trap. The quantum state of the ion can be controlled for quantum applications through such means as lasers and microwaves.

One of the advantages of working with trapped ions is theyre natural qubits, said Chris Seck, an ORNL quantum research scientist leading the ion-trap effort. Each trapped ion of a specific species is identical (in the same environment), and the physics of trapping and manipulating their quantum states has been well understood for decades. Thats part of what makes this such a promising platform.

ORNL has invested more than $3 million in its ion-trap efforts so far, mainly through the QSC.

Were still starting up, and as with any new effort, especially one started just before the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been growing pains, Seck said. Were excited about the possibilities for further exploration.

ORNL continues to expand its quantum efforts, including the creation of the QIS Section in 2021.

The QIS section is home to ORNLs research groups devoted to developing the tools and techniques for quantum sensing, computing and networking, Peters said. The QIS staff collaborate broadly across ORNL, in the region and across the U.S.

Researchers cant predict which strategy might lead to that quantum watershed moment or when it might come. Industry partners of the QSC have taken up other approaches. Discoveries could lead in directions yet to be considered.

Were learning more every day about what works and what doesnt, Humble said. Its akin to the late 1940s of computing, when the invention of the transistor didnt bring a digital revolution overnight. It was another decade before the invention of the microchip and even longer before we saw the rise of modern computers, cellphones and the internet. So were prepared for a sustained commitment to develop quantum computing and the remarkable opportunities it affords.

The QSC, a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by ORNL, performs cutting-edge research at national laboratories, universities and industry partners to overcome key roadblocks in quantum state resilience, controllability, and ultimately the scalability of quantum technologies. QSC researchers are designing materials that enable topological quantum computing; implementing new quantum sensors to characterize topological states and detect dark matter; and designing quantum algorithms and simulations to provide a greater understanding of quantum materials, chemistry, and quantum field theories. These innovations enable the QSC to accelerate information processing, explore the previously unmeasurable, and better predict quantum performance across technologies. For more information, visitqscience.org.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energys Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visithttps://energy.gov/science.

Source: ORNL

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Crossing the Quantum Frontier: ORNL, Quantum Science Center ... - HPCwire