Alan Aspuru-Guzik granted tenure at Harvard University "Breaking news: I just found out I got tenure 10 minutes ago. Thanks to all my friends for their support!"
— Alan Aspuru-Guzik

Quantum physicist Andrew White among new Australian Academy of Science Fellows University of Queensland  "Professor White  has built an international reputation through his work in quantum physics. His characterization of a quantum logic gate, the fundamental building block of a quantum computer, has set the standard in the field. His research has been published extensively in numerous high-profile journals such as Nature Communications, Science, Physical Review Letters, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and New Journal of Physics."

Anton Zeilinger elected to lead as new President of the Austrian National Academy of Sciences
Kurier.at Anton Zeilinger has been elected to lead as the new President for the Austrian National Academy of Sciences. He will begin serving in the position on July 1st of this year. 

Anton Zeilinger’s achievements have been most succinctly described in his citation for the Isaac Newton Medal of the Institute of Physics (UK), 

“for his pioneering conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, which have become the cornerstone for the rapidly-evolving field of quantum information. Anton is a pioneer in the field of quantum information and the foundations of quantum mechanics. He and his colleagues have demonstrated many world's-first achievements in the field, including quantum teleportation, entanglement swapping, dense coding, entanglement-based quantum cryptography, one-way quantum computation, multipartite quantum entanglement, and blind quantum computation. In addition, he has made many important contributions to the conceptual and experimental foundations of quantum mechanics, particularly in the areas of quantum entanglement and macroscopic quantum mechanics.” 

I lived and worked with Anton's group for two months on two consecutive Austrian National Research Fellowships for my research proposals to "Quantum Mechanics in Higher Dimensional Hilbert Spaces," and "What is Real in the Quantum World?" at the Austrian International Akademie, Traunkirchen, with Anton Zeilinger, Marcus Aspelmeyer, Caslav Brukner, Rupert Ursin, William Wootters, Christopher Fuchs, Daniel Greenberger and Michael Horne. 

Photos of the picturesque setting, and of the idyllic, crystalline lake in Traunkirchen, are available online here on Flickr.com.

Christopher Altman (front, center), Traunkirchen, Austria

Anton Zeilinger Selected to Serve as New Academy President

For some, he is the Austrian superstar of science. For others, because of his frequent public presence, he can be seen as a self-promoter. This much is not in dispute: The experimental physicist Anton Zeilinger (67) is one of those rare domestic scientists whose work has drawn the attention of the elite of the international scientific community. He sees science as few others do, through vivid and intricate experimental work—yet he taps into understandable language and easily reaches a lay audience. Now he will move to the top of the venerable Academy of Sciences (AAS) to convey his ideas as its chief.

"Mr. Beam," the "Quantum Pope," the "Pop Star of Science," "the Warlock from Vienna," as Zeilinger is sometimes called, with his graying beard and curly locks as a perfection of the stereotype of a scientist, enjoys widespread popularity despite sometimes facing criticisms. "The main reason he can convey such youthful enthusiasm is because he is an enthusiast himself."

Publicity never seems a motive for Zeilinger's work, recipient of the Club of Education and Science Journalists Award in 1996 for "Scientist of the Year". His motive is his enthusiasm for his subject. And so, as the award-winning physicist taught quantum physics to the Dalai Lama, discussed the meaning of life with Nobel laureates, and has always been set for even higher (Nobel Prize) ordinations. All this has been accomplished in a relatively short time—just looking back 15 years, when the physicist in 1997, with his teleportation experiments, made the breakthrough in the headlines through "beamed" quantum teleportation.

Research Timeline

Anton Zeilinger was born in May 20, 1945 in Ried, Upper Austria. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Vienna, yet with "not a single hour attended to a lecture on quantum physics." He had to acquire his knowledge from books, as he writes in his book "Einstein's Veil" (2003). His PhD was awarded at the Atomic Institute of Helmut Rauch, with the "father of quantum optics in Austria," where he worked after graduation (1971) as an assistant. This period also saw his first research visits abroad, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late Nobel laureate Clifford G. Shull's lab (1994).

Anton made several other trips abroad before he returned to his homeland in 1990 as professor of the University of Innsbruck. In 1998 he moved to Vienna University, and since then there, to the Institute for Experimental Physics. In 2003 he also founded, together with the University of Innsbruck physicists groups led by Rainer Blatt, Rudolf Grimm and Hans Briegel, the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), of which he also serves as the scientific director. Zeilinger also leads as physics Dean for the University of Vienna.

Zeilinger appears as a gifted experimenter, succeeding in sophisticated attempts to uncover altogether new relationships in Nature, and to confirm or disprove current theories, where he also repeatedly ventures back to the basics and the foundational principles of quantum physics. He works, and leads, in one of the most exciting and fastest growing areas of physics today: quantum technology. 

Pentagon Field Operations for Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Aid

Synergy Strike Force operates under DoD directive 3000.05 to support humanitarian relief and stabilization efforts in post-conflict environments such as those in Afghanistan today. The group is comprised of specialists with various technical skills who carry access to a wide range of social networks, with operators functioning alongside and in the same capacity as special forces operatives.

These specialists live and work “outside the fence” on long-term deployments to the region, integrating with the local population, assimilating with them in culture, appearance, and in their native language. However—as an independent, autonomous unit under assignment from the Pentagon, the OSD, and under interagency intelligence community programs—personnel assigned to the task force can also come from outside the formal boundaries of the US Government.

Project initiatives include the provision of free and resilient power, water, communications and Internet access; solar-powered, amorphous, ad-hoc distributed intelligent cellular and radio communications systems, medical supplies, education, open-source mapping and hyperspectral and multispectral satellite resources to protect endangered civilians worldwide. One example of program success: the initiative provided more than two million Internet-enabled cell phones to Afghan youths, enabling them to take part in the global dialogue.

The project puts boots on the ground to save lives every day in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, in other Mideast and South Asian countries, extending operations to South America, with trained DIA, USAF and OGA officers who assimilate seamlessly with the local population in the field and in their native environment. The program is coordinated by former Principal Assistant Secretary of Defense Lin Wells II, PhD, who served as Chief Information Officer for the Department of Defense.

Over coming decades, widespread armed conflict is anticipated to continue to diminish. However, natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis are anticipated to rise in frequency as a result of the impact of widespread environmental instability, giving rise to resource shortages in primary affected populations worldwide.

Linton Wells II, as former DEPSECDEF and DoD CIO, serves as US Force Transformation Chair, leading a wing of the Pentagon to take America’s military forward to meet this transition—to transform the United States armed forces from an efficient war-fighting machine into a unified force for disaster relief and humanitarian aid response teams in critical hot spots and third-world countries around the world.

The group further provides operations support at National Defense University (NDU), the Pentagon, and in the heart of the desert in Black Rock City, Nevada—where our camp provided the high-speed internet communications backbone for the core of the city via microwave internet field relays to the most proximate nearby town of Gerlach.

In previous years, critical injuries, such as broken bones, required the immediate and costly response of a helicopter medivac team to airlift the victims to the nearest main hospital in Reno, Nevada. The communications access provided by our team allows medical personnel and experienced X-ray technicians stationed on-site to locally diagnose these injuries, reducing the incident costs arising from inevitable accidental casualties.

The collective of Black Rock City itself serves as a large-scale technology, behavioral psychology and social network testbed, providing the world’s only experimental incubator for the study of a post-scarcity economy.

Rapid advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, neuroscience and cognitive technology—enabled by the rapid technological progress of Moore’s Law doubling in computer processing power, speed and complexity—will converge to confer radical changes to our society over coming decades.

The subject of the post-scarcity economy is of intense scrutiny to government leadership and to intelligence organizations around the world—who would seek to justify their continued existence in perpetuity through the transitions enabled by this technological convergence—as concurrent advances such as those in nanotechnology and three-dimensional printing will make currency and corporations wholly obsolete.

Why go to the store to buy a computer, electronics or pharmaceutical drugs, when the open-source plans to manufacture and print them are widely available on the Internet? Witness the contemporary impact to the music and movie industries.

Major industry associations, such as the RIAA and MPAA, are embroiled in a losing power struggle to counter an existential threat to their foundations and their very existence—that threat of rampant music and Hollywood film piracy—which is enabled by widespread internet use and the widespread advent of file sharing technologies.

The post-scarcity economy was a principal thesis in my 2002 Chair Report from the UNISCA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, “Converging Technologies: The Future of the Global Information Society,” distributed to principal government leaders around the world at UNISCA, the United Nations and the Executive Office of the President—then selected as recipient of the Information Security Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Policy from RSA in 2004.

After side-by-side field assignments in Black Rock City, under operational mandate “Beta at Burning Man, not in Baghdad,” program demonstrations were conducted at the Pentagon and at National Defense University in conjunction with Operation STAR TIDES in Washington, DC.

Tunable photon-ion entanglement enables quantum networks Nature | Innsbruck In Nature 485 and concurrent KurzweilAI press coverage, Rainer Blatt, Tracy Northup, and Andreas Stute have constructed an interface for quantum networks that is both efficient and freely tunable—the first interface between a single ion and a single photon. "Whenever we have to transfer quantum information from processing sites to communication channels, and vice versa, we’re going to need an interface between light and matter," explains Northup. "This technique has two significant advantages over previous approaches that have entangled atoms with light: the efficiency with which we produce entangled photons is quite high and in principle could be increased to over 99 percent. But above all, this setup allows us to generate any possible entangled state.”

Inaugural NASA Quantum Future Technologies Conference NASA Ames Research Center

NASA scientists joined the best quantum technology experts from academia, government and industry to identify new and exciting opportunities in space exploration, aeronautics, earth and space science where quantum technologies can have the greatest impact.

Conference topics included next-generation quantum experiments for measurements of time and distance, navigation, field sensing, and gravity wave detection; scalable quantum computing architectures and algorithms; quantum key distribution for practical secure transmission over long distances, including fiber channels, earth-satellite links, and space-based communications networks.

Collaborations forged from this conference led to our invited submission to NIAC, OCT and DARPA under QUINESS mandate to create the world's first global quantum teleportation network: Astronaut Development and Deployment of a Secure Space Communications Network, with colleagues Rupert Ursin, Colin Williams, Paolo Villoresi, and Vikram Sharma.

See also: World’s-first demonstration of Earth-to-space quantum teleportation

Conference Website
Live Videoconference Stream


Update February 3, 2012 | Videos and presentations are now online at the conference website.

With special thanks to Pete Worden and Gabe Durkin.

Quantum to Classical Crossover in Mechanical Systems Leiden 
Lorentz Center Workshop on the Quantum to Classical Crossover in Mechanical Systems 

In recent years there have been rapid developments in controlling micro- and nanometer-sized mechanical systems—to the point where quantum physics has become essential for understanding the dynamics of these systems. Quantized oscillations of mechanical resonators are now being discussed, and these have potential applications in the field of quantum information science.

New, fundamental tests of quantum mechanics—such as superpositions of states and entanglement between systems—are now within reach for macroscopic objects. These experimental possibilities provide new input to the discussion of how the classical world emerges from underlying quantum physics. A related question, whether quantum physics is needed to understand properties beyond those of the chemical reactions and molecular compositions of biological systems, will also be addressed. This Lorentz Center Workshop will bring together leading experimentalists and theorists in this field of research.

Workshop participants include Dirk Bouwmeester, Yaroslav Blanter, Herre van der Zant, Eva Weig, Markus Aspelmeyer, Hans Briegel, Andrew Cleland, Rosario Fazio, Philip Stamp, Wojciech Zurek, and many more.

I've recently been selected to train as a scientist-astronaut candidate for commercial suborbital and developing orbital flights with a newly-formed, nonprofit endeavor that counts NASA/ESA astronauts, astronaut trainers and instructors among its astronaut corps and its board of advisors. I'm honored to be selected for the program, and tremendously excited about the opportunity. This is just the start of a long and challenging journey!

The nascent field of commercial spaceflight—and the unique conditions afforded by space and microgravity environments—offer exciting new opportunities to conduct novel experiments in quantum entanglement, fundamental tests of spacetime, and large-scale quantum coherence. In pursuit of these goals, we have the opportunity to inspire our next generation of scientists, researchers and engineers. 

• Astronaut Scientists for Hire Open New Research Frontier in Space
• About the Astronauts: Christopher Altman  
• Quantum Astronaut: Facebook Page
• Virgin Galactic to fly scientists to space
• Spaceport America
• Bigelow Aerospace Partners with NASA, plans extension to International Space Station, Lunar Outposts

Quantum Experiments in Space and Microgravity

• NASA Jet Propulsion Lab: Innovative quantum technologies for microgravity fundamental physics and biological research
• Anton Zeilinger: Quantum Entanglement in Space

Extending coherence times in superconducting qubits Schoelkopf Lab | via Leo DiCarlo — In arXiv 1105.4652, Schoelkopf et al  report novel implementation of a superconducting transmon qubit strongly coupled to a 5-cm, three-dimensional superconducting cavity, attaining reproducible extension in coherence times of both qubit (T₁ and T₂ > 10 μs) and cavity (T_cav ∼ 50 μs) by more than an order of magnitude compared to the current state-of-the-art superconducting qubits. "This enables the study of the stability and quality of Josephson junctions at precisions exceeding one part per million. Surprisingly, we see no evidence for 1/ f critical current noise. At elevated temperatures, we observe dissipation due to a small density (< 1 − 10 ppm) of thermally excited quasiparticles. These results suggest that the overall quality of Josephson junctions will allow for error rates of 10⁻⁴, approaching the error correction threshold to meet the DiVincenzo criteria for universal quantum computation. 





Time domain measurement of qubit coherence (a) Relaxation from |1⟩ of qubit J1. T1 is 60 μs for this measurement. (b) Ramsey fringes measured on resonance with (blue squares) and without (red squares) echo sequence. The pulse width for the π and π/2 pulses used in the experiments is 20 ns. An additional phase is added to the rotation axis of the second π/2 pulse for each delay to give the oscillatory feature to the Ramsey fringes.

The Quantum Computer is Growing Up: Robust error correction in a quantum processor Rainer Blatt | Innsbruck | Science | KurzweilAI 

A more efficient algorithm for error correction in quantum computers has been demonstrated experimentally by physicists at the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IQOQI).

The physicists demonstrated the mechanism by storing three calcium ions in an ion trap. All three particles were used as qubits: one ion represented the system qubit while the other two ions represented auxiliary qubits. The system qubit was then entangled with the auxiliary qubits to transfer the quantum information to all three particles.

The physicists applied a quantum algorithm to determine whether an error occurred and, if there was an error, correct it. After making the correction, the auxiliary qubits were reset using a laser beam to enable repetitive error correction.

“For a quantum computer to become reality, we need a quantum processor with many quantum bits. Moreover, we need quantum operations that work nearly error-free; the third crucial element is an efficient error correction.”- Philipp Schindler

A team of physicists at the University of Innsbruck, led by Philipp Schindler and Rainer Blatt, has demonstrated a crucial element for quantum computers: repetitive error correction. This allows scientists to correct errors occurring in a quantum computer efficiently. The researchers recently published these findings in Science.

Quantum Entanglement Allows "Teleportation in Time" MIT Technology Review "Conventional entanglement links particles across space. Now physicists say a similar effect links particles through time. Entanglement is so deeply enmeshed in the universe that a measurement in the past has an automatic, time-symmetric, influence on the future—and vice versa." –MIT Technology Review

Science—Top Breakthrough of the Year Science, UCSB Science Magazine has compiled the top breakthroughs of the year, awarding the most significant scientific advance of 2010 to Andrew Cleland and John Martinis (UCSB). "This year’s Breakthrough of the Year represents the first time that scientists have demonstrated quantum effects in the motion of a human-made object," said Adrian Cho, a news writer for Science. "On a conceptual level it extends quantum mechanics into a whole new realm. On a practical level, it opens up a variety of possibilities ranging from new experiments that meld quantum control over light, electrical currents and motion to—perhaps someday—tests of the bounds of quantum mechanics and our sense of reality. This last grand goal might be achieved by trying to put a macroscopic object in a state in which it’s literally in two slightly different places at the same time."

TEDxCaltech | Feynman's Vision: The Next 50 Years Caltech In recognition of the 50 year anniversaries of Richard Feynman's visionary talk "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" and the inauguration of his revolutionary "Feynman Lectures on Physics," the Institute will host TEDxCaltech on January 14, 2011. TEDxCaltech will be a dynamic celebration of Feynman's spirit, curiosity, and scientific vision, and will take ideas worth sharing from Caltech out into the world by celebrating Nobel Laureate, visionary, and “curious character” Richard Feynman, with the theme “Feynman’s Vision: The Next 50 Years.” Speakers include Scott Aaronson, Immanuel Bloch, Sean Carroll, John Preskill, Lenny Susskind, David Awschalom, Kip Thorne, Charlie Marcus, Don Eigler, Michael Roukes, Craig Venter, and many more.

Future holds key to quantum physics — Obama awards National Medal of Science to Aharonov 

The National Medal of Science  

As reported in USAToday, Yakir Aharanov of Chapman University was in Washington D.C. to collect a National Medal of Science this past week:

“The future is affecting the past—all the time, on the quantum level—allowing physicists to effectively select the future they want their particles to have, within limits, and amplifying the results for a desired outcome.”

“I really believe we are close to a second revolution in physics as big as the one a century ago," Yakir Aharonov says. "I feel we are only beginning to free existing quantum theory and to do so, we must think of time in another way.”

Austrian Templeton Fellowship Traunkirchen
Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality

— In tribute to quantum pioneer Michael Horne 

I'm recently back from two resident Templeton fellowships on Quantum Mechanics in Higher Dimensional Hilbert Spaces and Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality at Austrian International Akademie Traunkirchen with Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger.

Fruitful collaborations were borne from engaging discussions with inspiring pioneers in the field including Rupert Ursin, Marcus Aspelmeyer, Časlav Brukner, William Wootters, Christopher Fuchs, Daniel Greenberger and Michael Horne. 

Christopher Altman (front, center), Traunkirchen, Austria

Creative discussions were enhanced by the tranquil setting of the former monastery, surrounded by mountainous scenery and clear blue skies reflected off the mirrored waters of Lake Traunsée. Overlooking the lake are Mount Traunstein, Salzkammergut, and the alpine mountain ranges spanning Upper Austria.

Photos of the picturesque setting and the idyllic, crystalline lake in the Austrian Alps are available online here. 

Zeilinger's achievements are most succinctly described in his citation for the Nobel Prize in Physics (2022) and the Isaac Newton Medal of the Institute of Physics: 

“For his pioneering conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, which have become the cornerstone for the rapidly-evolving field of quantum information. He is a pioneer in the field of quantum information and the foundations of quantum mechanics.”

Zeilinger and his colleagues have demonstrated many world's-first achievements in the field, including quantum teleportation, entanglement swapping, dense coding, entanglement-based quantum cryptography, one-way quantum computation, multipartite quantum entanglement, and blind quantum computation. In addition, he has made many important contributions to the conceptual and experimental foundations of quantum mechanics, particularly in the areas of quantum entanglement and macroscopic quantum mechanics. 

IQOQI Deputy Director Rupert Ursin later joined up for a tour of Mauna Kea and the Big Island of Hawaii in close proximity to the IEEE Summer Topicals Meeting on Quantum Photonics and Communications in Waikoloa, where he spoke on The Next Frontier of Quantum Communications, sharing engaging discussions alongside long, meandering morning walks on the beach that gave birth to new collaborations with Richard Hughes, Chair of the USG Quantum Roadmap at LANL, Tim Ralph, Wolfgang Tittel, Jaewan Kim, and Masahide Sasaki. 

Soon thereafter I was fortunate to attend the inaugural NASA Quantum Future Technologoies Conference under the visionary leadership of USAF Gen. Pete Worden, PhD astrophysicist. Stimulating debates with longtime mentor Jon Dowling led to further research collaborations with Ursin, Williams, Sharma, Villoresi under the DARPA QUINESS Macroscopic Quantum Communications program through our team proposal, Astronaut Development and Deployment of a Secure Quantum Space Channel Prototype at the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems. 

Quantum computers may be much easier to build than previously thought Physical Review Letters physorg, arXiv "Quantum computers should be much easier to build than previously thought, because they can still work with a large number of faulty or even missing components, according to a study published today in Physical Review Letters. This surprising discovery brings scientists one step closer to designing and building real-life quantum computing system—devices that could have enormous potential across a wide range of fields, from drug design, electronics, and even code-breaking."

Moving Towards Quantum Computing New York Times "Three major technologies have the potential to move from demonstration computers to practical, highly powerful machines. 'We’re at the stage of trying to develop these qubits in a way that would be like the integrated circuit that would allow you to make many of them at once,' said Rob Schoelkopf, a physicist who is leader of the Yale group. In the next few years you’ll see operations on more qubits, but only a handful. The good news is that while the number of qubits is increasing only slowly, the precision with which the researchers are able to control quantum interactions has increased a thousandfold."

Seth Lloyd—Quantum effects in Biological Systems MIT cbc.ca "Lloyd's biological research, funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, looks at how living things use quantum computation [...] Bird navigation, plant photosynthesis and the sense of smell all represent ways living things appear to exploit the oddities of quantum physics."

Google Workshop on Quantum Biology "Surprisingly robust quantum effects have been observed in warm biological systems. At the same time, quantum information technology has moved closer to physical realization. This Workshop on Quantum Biology will examine the significance of mesoscopic quantum coherence, tunneling and entanglement in biomolecular membranes, proteins, DNA and cytoskeleton, with particular attention to recently discovered megahertz ballistic conductance in microtubules. Potential utilization of biomolecular quantum information in regulation of cellular activities will be addressed, along with implications for disease and therapy as well as the future development of quantum computation and artificial intelligence." List of Speakers includes Alán Aspuru-Guzik (Harvard), Anirban Bandyopadhyay (Tsukuba), Stuart Hameroff (Tucson), Masoud Mohseni (MIT), Hartmut Neven (Google), Jiří Pokorný (Czech Republic), Elisabeth Rieper (Singapore), Mohan Sarova (Berkeley), Jack Tuszynski (Alberta), and Luca Turin (MIT)

– Quantum Biology · Agenda · Abstracts · Biographies

"We believe it is timely to set out on a distinct quantum biology agenda. The burgeoning fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, quantum technology, and quantum information processing are now strongly converging. As quantum engineering and nanotechnology meet, increasing use will be made of biological structures, or hybrids of biological and fabricated systems, for producing novel devices for information storage and processing, to create [novel sensors], and for other tasks. If experiments can shed further light on our understanding of decoherence in biomolecules, at scales where equilibrium thermodynamics no longer applies, this may provide the required foundation for greatly accelerating our progress in manmade quantum computers." 

– Anita Goel, Gerard Milburn, Sandu Popescu, Jeff Tollaksen 
         (Quantum Aspects of Life)

Are we living in a designer universe?  

MIT, Sussex "Creating a new universe would require a machine only slightly more powerful than the LHC—and there is every chance that our own universe may have been manufactured in this way." 
  – John Gribbin, Telegraph

"A basement universe possesses a fate independent of its parent: harnessing the zero-point energy to trigger inflation becomes a form of applied cosmological engineering. And if basement universes are a naturally occurring phenomenon, as suggested by inflationary cosmological models, the multiverse then takes on the characteristics of an evolutionary algorithm. Though the parent universe in any branching scenario need not have been of intelligent design, once a suitable set of cosmological constants is found through natural inflation, intelligent life could branch out from this point of origin, forming an expanding wavefront of intelligence and altering the evolution of the multiverse itself [...] 

Given that the conditions of the Drake equation are met, a potential explanation for the silence in our immediate neighborhood of the cosmos is that inter-universe panspermia supercedes local expansion. Vernor Vinge’s Singularity may not be only technological; it may be physical. The most powerful computer we can imagine would for all intensive purposes resemble a black hole."
   – C. Altman, Expansion Scenarios 

Is reality even stranger than quantum mechanics tells us? 

"We know that quantum correlations can be stronger than classical—but why aren't quantum correlations even stronger? Either we are missing something very significant to define quantum theory, or these other theories are all around us too."
 – Caslav Brukner (New Scientist)

Any quantum state can be cloned in the presence of closed timelike curves  "The possible existence of closed timelike curves (CTCs) draws attention to fundamental questions about what is physically possible and what is not. An example is the "no cloning theorem" in quantum mechanics — which states that no physical means exists by which an unknown arbitrary quantum state can be reproduced, or copied perfectly. We show here that this theorem can be circumvented in the presence of closed timelike curves, allowing for the cloning of an unknown arbitrary quantum state. Since the "no cloning theorem" has played a central role in the development of quantum information science, it is clear that the existence of CTCs would radically change the rules for quantum information technology." 
– Tim Ralph, David Ahn, R. B. Mann (arXiv:1008.0221)

Molecular Simulation with Superconducting Qubits 

"Because Nature isn't classical, damnit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical. " —Richard Feynman 

Georgia, UCSB In arXiv:1008.0701, Pritchett, Martinis et al. introduce a protocol for efficient simulation of molecular dynamics using superconducting qubits. "Recent experimental progress suggests that quantum simulation will be one of the first practical applications of quantum computation. We have shown how quantum computers of only a few qubits can simulate arbitrary quantum systems accurately and quickly, even before they reach the regime of fault tolerant quantum computation."

Decoherence sources in coupled flux qubits NEC, RIKEN In Phys Rev B and concurrent arXiv preprints, Yoshihara, Nakamura and Tsai study decoherence in coupled superconducting flux qubits. "The microscopic origin of decoherence has been elusive so far. It is crucial to identify and eliminate the source of noise sources in order to improve the performance of these devices—the sensitivity of SQUIDs and coherence of qubits. We have quantified the correlations among flux noise and found that the dominant contribution is by local fluctuations."

Superconducting qubits as artificial atoms

"The demonstrated resonance wave scattering indicates that superconducting quantum devices can be used as building blocks for controllable, quantum coherent, macroscopic artificial structures — in which a plethora of effects can be realized from quantum optics of atomic systems."

NEC 東京大学 This week's Qulink seminar by Yasunobu Nakamura (NEC) reports on recent developments in exploring the quantum optical properties of a superconducting flux qubit coupled to a 1d microwave transmission line. See also: Electromagnetically induced transparency on a single artificial atom (arXiv); Resonance fluorescence of a single artificial atom (Science); Ultimate on-chip quantum amplifier (Phys Rev Lett).

Quantum Zeno effect with a superconducting qubit NTT In arXiv 1006.2133, Matsuzaki and Semba provide detailed analysis of the Quantum Zeno effect in superconducting qubits: "Superconducting qubits are a promising system to observe the Quantum Zeno effect. We have studied how a sequence of projective measurements can alter the dephasing process, and suggest experimental requirements to observe the Quantum Zeno effect in existing superconducting qubits. It would be possible to demonstrate our prediction utilizing current technologies."

First quantum effects seen in visible object UCSB The first ever quantum superposition in an object visible to the naked eye has been observed (New Scientist) "The key was to connect the resonating strip to a superconducting qubit—the qubit acts as a bridge between the microscopic and the macroscopic worlds."

Quantum mechanics harnessed to control macroscopic mechanical system (Wired Science) "The goal of the experiment was to see if we could observe quantum mechanical effects in a large, mechanical object. It’s an exciting piece of work. People are interested in pushing the boundaries of quantum mechanics." The techniques harnessed to measure the effect are based upon research earlier reported in "Quantum Entanglement Visible to the Naked Eye" (Nature, Wired Science, BBC)

Room-temperature quantum coherence in photosynthesis (Wired News)"The Nature findings, made at room temperature in common marine algae, show that macroscopic biological coherence operates under everyday conditions. Moreover, similar results from an experiment on another, simpler light-harvesting structure, announced by Engel’s group last Thursday on the pre-publication online arXiv, suggest that photosynthetic coherence is routine. 'There’s every reason to believe this is a general phenomenon,' said Engel. Scholes’ finding is 'an extraordinary result that shows us a new way to use quantum effects at high temperatures.'"

Nature's hot green quantum computers revealed (New Scientist) "Exactly how these molecules remain coherent for so long, at such high temperatures and with relatively large gaps between them, is a mystery,' says Alexandra Olaya-Castro of University College London, who has been collaborating with Scholes to understand the underlying mechanisms and apply them elsewhere. She believes that the antenna's protein structure plays a crucial role. 'Coherence would not survive without it,' she says. 'The hope is that quantum coherence could be used to make solar cells more efficient. The work is going to change the way we think about photosynthesis and quantum computing, Engel says. 'It's an enormous result.'"

Long-lived quantum coherence in photosynthetic complexes at physiological temperature (arXiv) "We present the first evidence that quantum coherence survives at physiological temperature for at least 300 fs—long enough to perform a rudimentary quantum computational operation. This data proves that the wavelike energy transfer process discovered at 77K is directly relevant to biological function. Microscopically, we attribute this long coherence lifetime to correlated motions within the protein matrix encapsulating the chromophores, and we find that the degree of protection afforded by the protein appears constant between 77K and 277K. The protein shapes the energy landscape and mediates an efficient energy transfer despite thermal fluctuations. The persistence of quantum coherence in a dynamic, disordered system under these conditions suggests a new biomimetic strategy for designing dedicated quantum computational devices that can operate at high temperature."

Josephson junction neurons via physicsandcake Suzanne Gildert offers insights on a recent Phys. Rev. E preprint that proposes to model biologically realistic neurons using Josephson junction arrays. "These 'Josephson junction neurons' reproduce many characteristic behaviors of biological neurons such as action potentials, refractory periods, and firing thresholds, [and] would be orders of magnitude faster than both traditional computer simulations and biological neural networks." See also Quantum neural networks, backpropagation training, adaptive quantum networks.

Quantum Information Science—DARPA's New Frontier Collins offers this executive-level report on quantum information research at DARPA. "It's been almost a half-century since Intel founder Gordon Moore first observed that ever-shrinking circuitry on silicon chips leads to the doubling of the performance of these chips every 18 months or so. This has been instrumental in bringing rapid progress to the field of information processing. The era of Moore’s Law has been an interesting one, to say the least, but it is nearing its end: Within less than two decades, circuits will have shrunk to the atomic level."

Kavli Colloquium — From the foundations of quantum mechanics to quantum information Delft Friday, 05 June 2009, "Quantum in Delft" (Leo Kouwenhoven), "Is there quantum in bio?" (Nynke Dekker), "Is ψ real?" (Yuli Nazarov), "From the foundations of quantum mechanics to quantum information" (Anton Zeilinger)

Multi-Qubit Quantum Coherent Operations College Park "The purpose of this meeting is to identify – on a technology-specific basis – the primary difficulties that are likely to be encountered as qubit systems beyond typical current experiments with one, two, or three qubits are pursued. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: controllable qubit interactions, miniaturization and integration to increase qubit density, new physics arising from the assembly of many-qubit systems, and process and state validation for larger systems. The workshop aims to address the following questions:

Given a particular qubit technology that has already demonstrated full single qubit control, what are the challenges facing this system as it grows into the multiple qubit regime? In a system with multiple qubits, what will be the mechanism(s) through which these qubits interact? How can these interactions be well enough controlled to achieve reliable, scalable logic gates? Do they contribute to decoherent processes?

What new physics must be taken into account for the benefit of, or hindrance to, many qubit operations? Are there any fundamental results that will inform the community of possible roadblocks that may be encountered when growing systems to the multiple qubit regime?

How can cross-talk from the control/readout channel for one qubit, to a bystander qubit, be reduced to a satisfactory level? What are the specific technologies required to ensure that a robust multi-qubit information processing system can be realized?

As systems grow larger, quantum state and, and even more so, process tomography will become impractical. What other measures will be effective for validating the operations of these systems?"

National Workshop on Quantum Information Science OSTP|NTSC Via John Preskill, Dave Bacon, Ian Durham and Scott Aaronson — NSTC has announced a workshop in response to the recent Federal Vision for Quantum Information Science: "In January 2009, the United States National Science and Technology Council issued the report A Federal Vision for Quantum Information Science. The report proposes that

“The United States … create a scientific foundation for controlling, manipulating, and exploiting the behavior of quantum matter, and for identifying the physical, mathematical, and computational capabilities and limitations of quantum information processing systems in order to build a knowledge base for this 21st century technology.”

This Workshop on Quantum Information Science (QIS) has been organized in response to the NSTC report. It brings together leading theorists and experimenters drawn from physical science, computer science, mathematics, and engineering who will assess recent progress in QIS and identify major goals and challenges for future research."

Adaptive quantum networks – We introduce a robust, error-tolerant adaptive training algorithm for generalized learning in high-dimensional, superposed quantum networks, or adaptive quantum networks. The formalized procedure applies standard backpropagation training to a coherent ensemble of discrete topological configurations of individual neural networks, each of which is formally merged under linear superposition. Quantum parallelism facilitates simultaneous training and revision within this coherent state space, resulting in accelerated convergence to optima. The protocol provides quantitative, numerical indicators for optimization of both single-neuron activation functions and reconfiguration of global network topology.

Density plot of qubit purity ξ after t =20 kicks as a function of chaos parameter K=kT and nonlinear parameter g for T=2, δ=0.2 and ε=0.5.

Chaotic dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to a qubit Shepelyansky, Martin, Georgot arXiv 0812.5067: "We study the coupling between a qubit and a Bose-Einstein condensate moving in a kicked optical lattice. In the regime where BEC size is smaller than the lattice period, the chaotic dynamics of the BEC is effectively controlled by the qubit state. This gives an example of exponentially sensitive control over a macroscopic state by internal qubit states. The realization of such coupled systems is within reach of current experimental techniques."

Interference of interacting matter waves Innsbruck arXiv 0812.4836: "The phenomenon of matter wave interference lies at the heart of quantum physics. It has been observed in various contexts in the limit of non-interacting particles as a single particle effect. Here we observe and control matter wave interference whose evolution is driven by interparticle interactions. In a multi-path matter wave interferometer, the macroscopic many-body wave function of an interacting atomic Bose-Einstein condensate develops a regular interference pattern, allowing us to detect and directly visualize the effect of interaction-induced phase shifts. We demonstrate control over the phase evolution by inhibiting interaction-induced dephasing, and by refocusing a dephased macroscopic matter wave in a spin-echo type experiment. Our results show that interactions in a many-body system lead to a surprisingly coherent evolution – possibly enabling narrow-band and high-brightness matter wave interferometers based on atom lasers."

          

Entanglement made Visible Genève In arXiv 0902.2896 and arXivblog summary, Gisin et al. show that macroscopic entanglement – and Bell inequality violations – can be made directly visible to the human retina. "We have shown that quantum experiments with human eyes as detectors appear possible, based on a realistic model of the eye as a photon detector. Entanglement, in principle, can be seen."

The Case for a National Investment: A Policy Essay for the Obama Transition Office In a recent CCC white paper, Aaronson and Bacon present the case for quantum computing as a national mandate. "First, quantum computing must be considered a national security issue. Since quantum computers break the codes used ubiquitously to protect transactions over the Internet, any country obtaining a scalable quantum computer would have the ability to disrupt electronic communication. Second, quantum information science research will help to maintain the US's scientific and technological advantages. Third, quantum computing is the study of the fundamental limits of computing and, as such, offers the potential to revolutionize our understanding of computation itself."

Pentagon explores quantum biology DARPA/DSO has launched a research initiative to investigate quantum mechanical effects in biological systems [initial Wired announcement, Sep. 2008]. "Scientists have recently discovered that quantum energy transfers allow plants and cynobacteria to convert sunlight into chemical energy nearly instantly, and with almost 100 percent efficiency. As energy passes between molecules involved in photosynthesis, a newly-observed 'wavelike characteristic' allows the energy to 'simultaneously sample all the potential energy pathways and choose the most efficient one.' DARPA says there are other biological examples of quantum effects — including an explanation, perhaps, for how birds are able to navigate along the Earth's magnetic fields."

Quantum effects in biosystems Discover Magazine In Discover (February 2009), Mark Anderson reviews contemporary experiments in biophysics that explore the influence of quantum effects in living systems: "Could quantum mechanisms be driving some of the most elegant and inexplicable processes of life? For years experts doubted it: Quantum phenomena typically reveal themselves only in lab settings, in vacuum chambers chilled to near absolute zero. Biological systems are warm and wet. Most researchers thought the thermal noise of life would drown out any quantum weirdness that might rear its head. Yet new experiments keep finding quan­­tum processes at play in biological systems, says Christopher Altman, alumni researcher from European futurist think tank Starlab. With the advent of powerful new tools like femtosecond (10^-15 second) lasers and nanoscale-precision positioning, life’s quantum dance is finally coming into view."

The Unmanned Air Force USAF In Network World and concurrent Slashdot updates, Lt. Gen. Seip discusses the future of unmanned combat aerial vehicles. "How important have unmanned aircraft become to the US military? Well, how's this: the Air Force says next year it will acquire more unmanned aircraft than manned aircraft. Air Force Lt. Gen. Norman Seip this week said the service is "all in" when it comes to developing unmanned systems and aircraft.' Next year, the Air Force will procure more unmanned aircraft than manned aircraft,' the general said. 'I think that makes a very pointed statement about our commitment to the future of unmanned aircraft, and what it brings to the fight in meeting the requirements of combatant commanders.'"