A quantum computer shown at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in January.
A group of physicists found that the complexity of quantum computer systems does not grow exponentially with size, as expected, but only proportionally to the number of quantum bits. This means that it is possible to simulate complex quantum systems and carry out research with existing computers when no mature quantum computers have been created.
For a long Time, the development of quantum computers has been limited by the limited power of conventional computer processors, but the quantum computer hardware being designed now is still too small to see a truly usable scale quantum processor in various experimental prototypes.
Recently, a team of researchers at Loughborough University and the University of Nottingham have found a theory that by exploiting the “hyperchaos” state of quantum bits, a modern quantum processor could be used to create a quantum processor. hyperchaos” state, it is possible to simulate quantum systems with modern computers.
They found that when external energy like lasers and microwaves is applied to the system, the system becomes very disordered and ends up in a “hyperchaotic” state, according to the study.
While modern computers use 0s and 1s as the basic data unit, also called bits, the basic data unit of a quantum computer is the quantum bit, which adds a superposition of 0s and 1s to the two bits of the bit. Thus quantum computers can have extraordinary processing power.
When a quantum bit is excited by external energy, it will constantly jump between various digital states, or what researchers call “chaos“. But the complexity of this chaotic state, the study found, does not grow exponentially with the size of the system, as expected, but remains proportional to the number of quantum bits.
This finding has huge potential implications for how quantum systems can be modeled, according to the study.
One of the researchers, Alexandre Zagoskin of Loughborough University, explained it using the analogy of the design process of an airplane. “Aircraft design requires the computation of complex aerodynamic equations, which was not possible until the birth of high-speed computers after World War II. But long before that, people were already designing airplanes. Because one could characterize aerodynamic models using a limited number of parameters that could be done with small models and experiments.”
The situation with quantum computer systems also has such characteristics, Zagoskin said. If all the details are simulated directly, modern computers can’t do it. “But if we can simulate a system with 10,000 quantum bits with 10,000 parameters instead of 2^10,000 parameters, that’s a key breakthrough.”
The manageable complexity of large quantum systems also opens up new ideas for designing entirely new quantum encryption tools, according to the study.
The study was published Jan. 4 in NPJ Quantum Information, a special issue of Nature on quantum information.
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