Lifeboat Foundation

For any computer, being able to manipulate information is essential, but for quantum computing, singling out one data location without influencing any of the surrounding locations is difficult. Now, a team of Penn State physicists has a method for addressing individual neutral atoms without changing surrounding atoms.

“There are a set of things that we have to have to do quantum computing,” said David S. Weiss, professor of physics. “We are trying to step down that list and meet the various criteria. Addressability is one step.”

Quantum computers are constructed and operate in completely different ways from the conventional digital computers used today. While conventional computers store information in bits, 1‘s and 0’s, quantum computers store information in qubits. Because of a strange aspect of quantum mechanics called superposition, a qubit can be in both its 0 and 1 state at the same time. The methods of encoding information onto neutral atoms, ions or Josephson junctions—electronic devices used in precise measurement, to create quantum computers—are currently the subject of much research. Along with superposition, quantum computers will also take advantage of the quantum mechanical phenomena of entanglement, which can create a mutually dependent group of qubits that must be considered as a whole rather than individually.

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Entangled particles could one day allow your phone to charge at warp speed.

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CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, after a two-year shutdown, has begun a new quest to probe some of the biggest puzzles about the universe, such as dark matter and the possible presence of other dimensions.

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After 85 years of searching, researchers have confirmed the existence of a massless particle called the Weyl fermion for the first time ever. With the unique ability to behave as both matter and anti-matter inside a crystal, this strange particle can create electrons that have no mass.

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Two separate teams of researchers have found evidence for a theorized type of massless particle known as a “Weyl fermion.” The discovery was made by scientists at Princeton University in New Jersey and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and could herald a whole new age of better electronics.

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Researchers have discovered a massless particle, which was first theorized 85 years ago and thought to be a building block for other subatomic particles.

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Researchers have confirmed the existence of two pentaquark states, rare subatomic particles made up of five quarks.

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Scientists have discovered Weyl fermions, elusive massless particles theorized 85 years ago that could give rise to faster and more efficient electronics because of their unusual ability to behave as matter and antimatter inside a crystal.

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“In its inaugural year of observations, the Dark Energy Survey has already turned up at least eight objects that look to be new satellite dwarf galaxies of the Milky Way.”

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