A previous experiment performed by both MIT and Harvard Universities revealed the occurrence of surprising oscillations of atoms put under measurement. These oscillations took place for a long and unexpected duration. And this is exactly what is required for a quantum computer.
The Hilbert space graph of the Fibonacci chain with L = 6 sites.
The experiment included the measurement of trapped and manipulated atoms and the usage of tuned lasers to assemble them in a long chain of 51 atoms.
Today, researchers under the University of Leed provided a theoretical explanation for the strange behavior of these atoms. An interpretation provided by one of the professors - Dr. Zlatko Papic - was that atoms were able to remember their initial configuration during their chaotic movement.
But the question demanding an answer was: where did these oscillations come from?
According to Papic, the oscillations came from a new phenomenon which they called Quantum many-body scar.
According to PHYS.ORG:
A quantum scar is when a special configuration or pathway leaves an imprint on the particles' state that keeps them from filling the entire space. This prevents the systems from reaching thermalisation and allows them to maintain some quantum effects.
Thermalization, by the way, is that fact that particles bounce off one another exploring the whole space before settling finally into equilibrium, which must be avoided for quantum computers.
Moreover, according to Tech Exporist:
Quantum many-body scar might be imagined as a piece of arrangement space that is to some degree “shielded” from chaos, consequently prompting a much slower unwinding. As such: the framework takes more time to come back to tumult—the equilibrium state.
However, exploring more into the quantum many-body scar theory will open the way for more possibilities to how to maintain these extended quantum stated revealed from the MIT-Harvard experiment to achieve a coherent and stable quantum computer.
References:
PHYS.ORG
Tech Explorist
Photo Source: Nature
GIF Source: Tech Explorist