Researchers at University of Cologne have analyzed cutting-edge device structures of quantum computers to demonstrate that some of them are indeed operating dangerously close to a threshold of chaotic meltdown.
The challenge is to walk a thin line between too high, but also too low disorder to safeguard device operation.
Qubits interlinked to form a computing structure define a system of coupled pendulums — a system that, like classical pendulums, can easily be excited to uncontrollably large oscillations with disastrous consequences. In the quantum world, such uncontrollable oscillations lead to the destruction of quantum information; the computer becomes unusable. Intentionally introduced local ‘detunings’ of single pendulums keep such phenomena at bay.
The study has been published today in Nature Communications.
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