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Method combines quantum mechanics with machine learning to accurately predict oxide reactions at high temperatures when no experimental data is available; could be used to design clean carbon-neutral processes for steel production and metal recycling.

Extracting metals from oxides at high temperatures is essential not only for producing metals such as steel but also for recycling. Because current extraction processes are very carbon-intensive, emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases, researchers have been exploring new approaches to developing “greener” processes. This work has been especially challenging to do in the lab because it requires costly reactors. Building and running computer simulations would be an alternative, but currently there is no computational method that can accurately predict oxide reactions at high temperatures when no experimental data is available.

A Columbia Engineering team reports that they have developed a new computation technique that, through combining quantum mechanics and machine learning, can accurately predict the reduction temperature of metal oxides to their base metals. Their approach is computationally as efficient as conventional calculations at zero temperature and, in their tests, more accurate than computationally demanding simulations of temperature effects using quantum chemistry methods. The study, led by Alexander Urban, assistant professor of chemical engineering, was published on December 1, 2021 by Nature Communications.

A team of theoretical physicists at Griffiths University in Australia are investigating a radical quantum theory of time which posits that there is a asymmetry between time and space.

To explain why time points from the past to the future, scientists have proposed that under the second law of thermodynamics, time itself moves towards increased entropy, a measurement of disorder in a system.

Continue reading “Scientists Are Investigating If Time Warps Near a Nuclear Reactor” »

This paper discusses the quantum mechanics of closed timelike curves (CTC) and of other potential methods for time travel. We analyze a specific proposal for such quantum time travel, the quantum description of CTCs based on post-selected teleportation (P-CTCs). We compare the theory of P-CTCs to previously proposed quantum theories of time travel: the theory is physically inequivalent to Deutsch’s theory of CTCs, but it is consistent with path-integral approaches (which are the best suited for analyzing quantum field theory in curved spacetime). We derive the dynamical equations that a chronology-respecting system interacting with a CTC will experience. We discuss the possibility of time travel in the absence of general relativistic closed timelike curves, and investigate the implications of P-CTCs for enhancing the power of computation.

Look past the details of a wonky discovery by a group of California scientists — that a quantum state is now observable with the human eye — and consider its implications: Time travel may be feasible. Doc Brown would be proud.

The strange discovery by quantum physicists at the University of California Santa Barbara means that an object you can see in front of you may exist simultaneously in a parallel universe — a multi-state condition that has scientists theorizing that traveling through time may be much more than just the plaything of science fiction writers.

And it’s all because of a tiny bit of metal — a “paddle” about the width of a human hair, an item that is incredibly small but still something you can see with the naked eye.

John Wheeler, who is mentor to many of today’s leading physicists, and the man who coined the term “black hole”, suggested that the nature of reality was revealed by the bizarre laws of quantum mechanics. According to the quantum theory, before the observation is made, a subatomic particle exists in several states, called a superposition (or, as Wheeler called it, a ‘smoky dragon’). Once the particle is observed, it instantaneously collapses into a single position (a process called ‘decoherence’).

The so-called “mirror-circuit” testing method will help scientists advance the technology behind these super powerful processors. https://bit.ly/3snkgR8

Quantum and biological systems are seldom discussed together as they seemingly demand opposing conditions. Life is complex, “hot and wet” whereas quantum objects are small, cold and well controlled. Here, we overcome this barrier with a tardigrade — a microscopic multicellular organism known to tolerate extreme physiochemical conditions via a latent state of life known as cryptobiosis. We observe coupling between the animal in cryptobiosis and a superconducting quantum bit and prepare a highly entangled state between this combined system and another qubit. The tardigrade itself is shown to be entangled with the remaining subsystems. The animal is then observed to return to its active form after 420 hours at sub 10 mK temperatures and pressure of $6\times 10^{-6}$ mbar, setting a new record for the conditions that a complex form of life can survive.

Created as an analogy for Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) — which describes the interactions due to the electromagnetic force carried by photons — Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of physics that explains the interactions mediated by the strong force — one of the four fundamental forces of nature.

A new collection of papers published in The European Physical Journal Special Topics and edited by Diogo Boito, Instituto de Fisica de Sao Carlos, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Irinel Caprini, Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania, brings together recent developments in the investigation of QCD.

The editors explain in a special introduction to the collection that due to a much stronger coupling in the strong force — carried by gluons between quarks, forming the fundamental building blocks of matter — described by QCD, than the electromagnetic force, the divergence of perturbation expansions in the mathematical descriptions of a system can have important physical consequences. The editors point out that this has become increasingly relevant with recent high-precision calculations in QCD, due to advances in the so-called higher-order loop computations.

NTT, University of Tokyo and Riken aim for full-fledged system by 2030.

TOKYO — A Japanese team of scientists on Wednesday announced a key step in the development of a quantum computer using photons, or particles of light, that eliminates the need for an ultracold environment used to cool existing machines.