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Seeing the Quantum Future...literally


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Trapped Ytterbium ions were used as one of the most advanced laboratory quantum systems for this study.

Scientists at the University of Sydney have demonstrated the ability to see the future of quantum systems.

Credit: University of Sydney

Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia led by professor Michael J. Biercuk have utilized big data methods to predict how quantum systems will change and then preventively suppress decoherence.

Vital to this milestone was devising a technique to predict disintegration of a quantum system composed of quantum bits (qubits) formed from trapped ytterbium ions.

Biercuk says seemingly random behavior in fact contained sufficient information for a computer program to infer how the system would change in the future, enabling it to then predict the future without direct observation, which would otherwise trigger decoherence. The accuracy of the prediction enabled the research team to use their guesses preemptively to compensate for the expected changes.

The real-time performance of this process prevented decoherence, extending the longevity of the qubits.

"We know that building real quantum technologies will require major advances in our ability to control and stabilize qubits--to make them useful in applications," Biercuk says. "Our techniques apply to any qubit, built in any technology, including the special superconducting circuits being used by major corporations."

From University of Sydney
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