Researchers have developed a groundbreaking method enabling quantum computers to switch between different error correction codes during computation, overcoming a fundamental limitation in quantum computing where no single code can efficiently perform all necessary operations while maintaining error protection.
Trapped ions have previously only been entangled in one and the same laboratory. Now, teams have entangled two ions over a distance of 230 meters. The nodes of this network were housed in two labs at the Campus Technik to the west of Innsbruck, Austria. The experiment shows that trapped ions are a promising platform for future quantum networks that span cities and eventually continents.
The quantum nature of objects visible to the naked eye is currently a much-discussed research question. A team has now demonstrated a new method in the laboratory that could make the quantum properties of macroscopic objects more accessible than before. With the method, the researchers were able to increase the efficiency of an established cooling method by an order of a magnitude.
Two seemingly different areas of physics are related in subtle ways: Quantum theory and thermodynamics. How can the laws of thermodynamics arise from the laws of quantum physics? This question has now been pursued with computer simulations, which showed that chaos plays a crucial role: Only where chaos prevails do the well-known rules of thermodynamics follow from quantum physics.