Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists want to use quantum mechanics to capture higher-resolution images of the night sky.

For the purposes of astronomy, the two beams are collected by two telescopes that are separated by some distance (called baseline interferometry). But despite its effectiveness, classic interferometry is subject to some limitations. Andrei Nomerotski, an astrophysicist with the BNL and a co-author on the paper, explained to Universe Today via email.

“Interferometry is a way to increase the effective aperture of telescopes and to improve the angular resolution or astrometric precision,” he said. “The main difficulty here is to maintain the stability of this optical path to very high precision, which should be much smaller than the photon wavelength, to preserve the photon’s phase. This limits the practical baselines to a few hundred meters.”

Continue reading “Quantum Telescopes Could Offer Clearer Views of Our Solar System and Beyond” »

Out of numerous companies that have created quantum technology, these 6 are particularly known for their work in superconducting qubits.

Researchers at Purdue University have discovered new waves with picometer-scale spatial variations of electromagnetic fields which can propagate in semiconductors like silicon. The research team, led by Dr. Zubin Jacob, Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Department of Physics and Astronomy (courtesy) published their findings in APS Physics Review Applied in a paper titled, “Picophotonics: Anomalous Atomistic Waves in Silicon.”

“The word microscopic has its origins in the length scale of a micron which is a million times smaller than a meter. Our work is for light matter interaction within the picoscopic regime which is far smaller, where the discrete arrangement of atomic lattices changes light’s properties in surprising ways.” says Jacob.

These intriguing findings demonstrate that natural media host a variety of rich light-matter interaction phenomena at the atomistic level. The use of picophotonic waves in semiconducting materials may lead researchers to design new, functional optical devices, allowing for applications in quantum technologies.

Andrew Strominger is a theoretical physicist at Harvard. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
- Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex to get special savings.
- Rocket Money: https://rocketmoney.com/lex.
- Indeed: https://indeed.com/lex to get $75 credit.
- ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free.

EPISODE LINKS:
Andrew’s website: https://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/strominger.
Andrew’s papers:
Soft Hair on Black Holes: https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.00921
Photon Rings Around Warped Black Holes: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.

Continue reading “Andrew Strominger: Black Holes, Quantum Gravity, and Theoretical Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #359” »

Interview with Prof. Sean Carroll, Research Professor of Physics at Caltech and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. We mainly talk about quantum spacetime: the idea that our familiar spacetime might be actually emergent from some complex quantum mechanical system. We cover entanglement, decoherence, entropic gravity, the AdS/CFT correspondence, string theory, black holes, along with several philosophical questions concerning these topics, including reduction and emergence, substantivalism vs. relationalism, monism, and much more.

Sean’s website: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/
His recent book concerning these topics: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/somethingdeeplyhidden/
His papers on these topics can be found here: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/research/annotated-publications/
His podcast: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/
And his Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanmcarroll/

Physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have developed the basic technology for a new “quantum modem”. It will allow users to connect to a future quantum internet that is based on the existing fibre optic network infrastructure.

Research

The first quantum revolution brought about semiconductor electronics, the laser and finally the internet. The coming, second quantum revolution promises spy-proof communication, extremely precise quantum sensors and quantum computers for previously unsolvable computing tasks. But this revolution is still in its infancy. A central research object is the interface between local quantum devices and light quanta that enable the remote transmission of highly sensitive quantum information. The Otto-Hahn group “Quantum Networks” at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching is researching such a “quantum modem”. The team has now achieved a first breakthrough in a relatively simple but highly efficient technology that can be integrated into existing fibre optic networks. The work is published this week in “Physical Review X”.

Are quantum fields real, or are they simply calculational tools? These 3 experiments show that if energy is real, so are quantum fields.

In a new breakthrough, researchers at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Ruhr University Bochum, have solved a problem that has caused quantum researchers headaches for years. The researchers can now control two quantum light sources rather than one. Trivial as it may seem to those uninitiated in quantum, this colossal breakthrough allows researchers to create a phenomenon known as quantum mechanical entanglement. This, in turn, opens new doors for companies and others to exploit the technology commercially.

Going from one to two is a minor feat in most contexts. But in the world of quantum physics, doing so is crucial. For years, researchers around the world have strived to develop stable quantum light sources and achieve the phenomenon known as quantum mechanical entanglement – a phenomenon, with nearly sci-fi-like properties, where two light sources can affect each other instantly and potentially across large geographic distances. Entanglement is the very basis of quantum networks and central to the development of an efficient quantum computer.

Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute published a new result in the highly esteemed journal Science, in which they succeeded in doing just that. According to Professor Peter Lodahl, one of the researchers behind the result, it is a crucial step in the effort to take the development of quantum technology to the next level and to “quantize” society’s computers, encryption, and the internet.

It actually makes a lot of sense from a computing standpoint.

If life is common in our Universe, and we have every reason to suspect it is, why do we not see evidence of it everywhere?

This is the essence of the Fermi Paradox, a question that has plagued astronomers and cosmologists almost since the birth of modern astronomy.

Continue reading “Alien Civilizations Could Use Black Holes as Massive Quantum Computers” »