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Scientists Turned a Quantum Computer Into a Time Crystal
- For quantum computers to unleash their full potential, they need to be more resilient—capable of reducing errors and avoiding decoherence.
- As described in a new study from Chinese and U.S. scientists, a team successfully embedded the inherent stability of a topological time crystal into a quantum computer, which then showed signs of increased robustness.
- Although this is a long way from being implemented into quantum computers more broadly, this study shows that the quantum system of time crystals holds a lot of promise for the future of quantum computing.
Quantum computing—much like fusion or room-temperature superconductors—always feels years away from making a profound impact on human life. And while that slow progress can feel frustrating, there’s a reason why these concepts remain relentlessly pursued around the world. A room-temperature superconductor would revolutionize the electric grid, fusion would bring the power of the Sun to Earth, and quantum computing could solve problems (even immensely complex ones like climate change) that we could never hope to solve with classical computing alone.
But, like fusion and superconductors, a few things stand in the way of this quantum computing dream. And chief among them is a lack of resilience. Due to the tricky science that underpins quantum computers, these machines are incredibly susceptible to noise and errors, which eventually lead to decoherence—a cessation of the quantum superposition state that makes qubits so useful.
So, to improve resilience, a team of scientists from the U.S. and China leveraged the inherent stability of another quantum system known as a time crystal. By effectively turning a quantum computer into a time crystal, the researchers were able to create topological time-crystals capable of lasting longer than expected. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.
Other than being an excellent name for some kind of plot device in a B-movie fantasy film, time crystals also seem to defy our typical understanding of physics. First discovered by physicist Frank Wilczek in 2012 (a discovery that won him the Nobel Prize), time crystals behave like standard crystalline structures but across time. Where a normal crystal (like, say, a diamond) repeats in atomic structure, a time crystal repeats not in a physical dimension, but a temporal one. This is such a wacky concept because time crystals appear to sidestep the well-known second law of thermodynamics.
This study focuses on topological time crystals, which sort of take this idea and make it a bit more complex (not that it wasn’t already). A topological time crystal’s behavior is determined by overall structure, rather than just a single atom or interaction. As ZME Science describes, if normal time crystals are a strand in a spider’s web, a topological time crystal is the entire web, and even the change of a single thread can affect the whole web. This “network” of connection is a feature, not a flaw, as it makes the topological crystal more resilient to disturbances—something quantum computers could definitely put to use.
In this experiment, scientists essentially embedded this behavior into a quantum computer, creating fidelities that exceeded previous quantum experiments. And although this all occurred in a prethermal regime, according to ZME Science, it’s still a big step forward towards potentially creating a more stable quantum computer capable of finally unlocking that future that always feels a decade from our grasp.
