Communications of the ACM
Seeking Quantum-Ness: D-Wave Chip Passes Rigorous Tests
USC researchers have shown the D-Wave One processor behaves in a way that agrees with a model called quantum Monte Carlo.
Credit: USC Viterbi
University of Southern California (USC) researchers have shown that the D-Wave One processor behaves in a way that agrees with a model called quantum Monte Carlo, yet disagrees with two candidate classical models that could have described the processor in the absence of quantum effects.
"The challenge is that the tests we can perform on the USC-based D-Wave processor can't directly 'prove' that the D-Wave processor is quantum--we can only disprove candidate classical models one at a time," says USC professor Daniel Lidar. "But so far we find that the D-Wave processor is always consistent with our quantum models. Our tests continually get more rigorous and complex."
The concept that quantum effects are in action in the processors is further supported by recent work involving USC Information Sciences Institute researcher Federico Spedalieri, who demonstrated entanglement in a chip, as well as earlier testing of a smaller group of qubits by Spedalieri, Lidar, and their collaborators. "Our work is part of a large-scale effort by the research community aimed at validating the potential of quantum-information processing, which we all hope might one day surpass its classical counterparts," Lidar says.
In theory, quantum processors can help in a variety of big data problems such stock portfolio optimization, image recognition and classification, and identifying anomalies.
From USC News
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Abstracts Copyright © 2014 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
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