Solving a vexing vortex

Researchers have long sought to control quantum states in materials for use in a next generation of high-speed computing—so-called quantum computing that scientists predict could one day lead to operations beyond the realm of classical computers.

But quantum computing—performing operations by employing quantum states such as nuclear spins, Josephson-junction arrays, and nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamonds—has run up against a range of barriers that restrict achieving true functionality.

What is needed is a quiet place—a platform free of the quantum-phase disruptions posed by noise and decoherence and other errors that derail quantum operations.

That quiet place may be found in a new arena—topological quantum states. Researchers posit that these states can be used to construct topological qubits—zones protected from noise and decoherence provoked by local perturbations. These zones are central to a relatively new interdisciplinary field focused on producing fault-tolerant topological quantum computing, or TQC.

Researchers from Boston College and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology report in the journal Physical  Review X that they have developed a new theory of Quantum Anomalous Vortices (QAVs) that shows how these quiet zones can be created using these unusual topological defects in superconducting materials.

The team demonstrated through theoretical calculations that it is possible to construct QAVs to realize robust Majorana zero modes (MZMs)—exotic topological quantum states within in a mysterious particle proposed by Italian physicist Ettore Majorana in 1937.

Today, the researchers say quantum information can be stored in a pair of spatially separated MZMs—a Majorana qubit—which is resistant to fault disruptions caused by noise and decoherence.

But a MZM exists in a vortex, a tornado-like swirl of electrons in the topological defects of a superconducting material. Research to date has insisted that such vortices can only be generated by applying a large external magnetic field, which creates instability and limits the control required to conduct computing operations, or make devices.

Source: Scienceblog.com

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