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KINGSTON, R.I. Facing the University of Rhode Islands quadrangle, Sen. Jack Reed stood atop the steps of East Hall on Friday and addressed members of the URI campus following the schools announcement of a new quantum computing initiative designed to keep up to date with the fast-paced change in technology and cybersecurity.

The process is supported by a $1 million federal earmark from the state and funding from the URI College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Oceanography.

These funds will help the university expand its teaching bringing experts to expand the universitys quantum degree programs and help train the next generation of students and researchers, Reed said.

Last Friday was World Quantum Day, and the school celebrated its step toward preparing students for fields linked to the ever-evolving workforce of computing. The event lasted throughout the afternoon and into the early evening.

URIs initiative involves a new research partnership with the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). This is expected to garner further support toward the schools masters degree and graduate certificate programs and will give the university access to Big Blues cutting-edge quantum computing systems. It is anticipated that improved access to these resources will improve student education and faculty research.

(Quantum computing) is quickly becoming ubiquitous, URI President Marc Parlange said. And its rapidly evolving. And we have an opportunity to be at the leading edge of this growth.

Reed and Parlange began the symposium and Adele Merritt, Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, closed with a keynote presentation in East Halls auditorium.

Other speakers throughout the day included Christopher Savoie, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zapata Computing, Christopher Lirakis, lead for quantum systems deployment at IBM, Charles Robinson, quantum computing public sector leader at IBM, Pedro Lopes, business developer at the computing firm QuEra, and Juan Rivera, senior engineer at Dell Computing, and Kurt Jacobs, deputy chief scientist at the U.S. Armys Research Lab.

Savoie holds a bachelors degree from URI and is on the College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council. Merritt has her Ph.D. from URI, in mathematics.

Quantum mechanics is a science that explores how matter and light act on an atomic and subatomic scale. Its a fundamental theory designed to solve issues that too advanced for original or outdated technology.

Computers process data by manipulating digital information; units represented in zeros and ones. These info bits, known as qubits, can exist as zero and a one, simultaneously.

There are some present-day supercomputers that cant handle this kind of information in multiple states at once. Quantum computers, however, can perform these calculations.

Such technology is in its early stages.

URI will provide more outreach and summer research opportunities for high school students, in an attempt to spark interest for the next generation of quantum physicists.

This will be done through URIs faculty working with Qubit, a nonprofit group, to provide the reach-out and include scholarships for high schoolers to participate in summer workshops and research internships on the Kingston Campus.

In 2021, the university started a five-year program that graduates students with a bachelors degree in physics and a masters in quantum computing. This year, it added an online graduate certificate program.

Recognizing that quantum computing will be integrated into every major industry within the next decade, the physics department has developed one of the first standalone masters programs in quantum computing, as well as an online graduate certificate designed for current STEM professionals to pivot into a new career, Jen Riley, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences said. Theyve also created an undergraduate program with a five-year accelerated bachelors to masters degree program in quantum computing.

Researchers on campus are moving to make quantum computers scalable and more vigorous, while others are trying to familiarize themselves with the technology.

Access to the IBM software will also allow a partnership between URI and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, which will support studies into the use of quantum systems in the development of autonomous underwater vehicles.

To expand research and its teaching capacity, the school plans to add four visiting faculty, four postdoctoral researchers, and four graduate teaching assistants in the coming years.

Scientific innovation has been essential to the success for the intelligence communitys mission, Merritt said. The rapidly evolving landscape requires us to be well informed on emerging technologies.

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URI looks to the future with new quantum computing initiative - The Independent

BYLINE: Randy Weiler

Newswise The new field ofquantum information sciencehas been growing across the U.S. and around the globe, and now it has been developed for students and scholars to study atMiddle Tennessee State University.

TheCollege of Basic and Applied SciencesandDepartment of Physics and Astronomylaunched a new website (www.mtsu.edu/quantum) this week to introduce theMTSU Quantum Science Initiativetaking shape at the university, promoting faculty efforts in research, education and workforce development in the field of quantum sciences.

As part of MTSUs quantum education efforts, associate professor and computational quantum physics expertHanna Terletskahas piloted a new interdisciplinary undergraduate course on quantum computing for MTSU students from different departments within the college.

Its critical that our students have access to and are trained for the 21st-century jobs and workforce skills, Terletska said. MTSU has a unique opportunity to position itself as a hub for quantum science and education in the Middle Tennessee region with the potential to attract top talent to MTSU.

Seventeen MTSU students are taking a class Introduction to Quantum Computing for the first time this semester. It is for all STEM science, technology, engineering and technology majors.

Quantum information science is a rapidly growing field with enormous potential to transform various areas, Terletska indicated, including computing, national security, financing, energy research, new materials, health care and information technology.

Terletska is the first MTSUNational Science Foundation Early Career Awardrecipient the most prestigious national honor for young U.S. faculty and her National Science Foundation funding, two existing grants totaling about $635,000, are in the area of computational study of quantum materials with strong correlations and impurities and imperfections.

Terletska has applied for two NSF grants, one for $1 million and another for $800,000, and a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. MTSU anticipates hearing results from the applications later this year.

Joining Terletska, who is considered a global rising star in physics and research, in the initiative, are physics and astronomy ChairRon HendersonandbiologyprofessorRyan Otter, director of the MTSUData Science Institute. Henderson and physics faculty memberNeda Naseriare training in the course.

The MTSU initiative aims to integrate quantum concepts into existing courses and programs, train students in quantum science and develop new educational programs at all levels, including K-20, to cover kindergarten to graduate-degree training.

According to Terletska, quantum physics explores the behavior of matter and energy at the atomic and subatomic level to understand the fundamental properties of nature.

Quantum technologies, including quantum computing, energy storage and transformation and sensing, are based on quantum physics and materials and have transformative potential in various fields.

The U.S. government has identified quantum research and education as key tenets of science and technology, as outlined in the National Quantum Initiative Act, passed in 2018. Major federal science and research agencies, including the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy are supporting this area of research.

Our efforts align perfectly with MTSUs ongoing efforts to maintain its (Carnegie) R2 high research activity status by growing and expanding in this strategically important research focus, Terletska said.

Added College of Basic and Applied Sciences DeanGreg Van Patten, As MTSU continues to build our research portfolio and to ascend through the R2 ranks, we must focus energy and resources into areas where we have competitive advantages. Recent successes in the area of quantum science, from Dr. Terletska and others, make this an emerging area of strength for MTSU.

We have amassed support from federal agencies, established collaborations with other universities and have excited interest from a number of undergraduate and graduate students who see future opportunities in the eventual commercialization of quantum information technology.

Van Patten said the colleges mission focuses on preparing students at all levels for successful careers across a range of scientific and technical fields, on promoting scholarship and scientific inquiry and on addressing key scientific challenges that face our nation.

The ongoing research on quantum information science at MTSU hits all three parts of the college mission. At present, quantum science is a rapidly advancing field that is beginning its transition from the laboratory to the marketplace. It has the potential to revolutionize certain computational tasks, including cybersecurity, and Im excited that MTSU is involved in moving this field forward.

Physics chair Henderson added that the field of quantum science is evolving rapidly, and MTSU physics majors are eager to find ways to enter the quantum workforce.

In addition to Dr. Terletskas quantum computing class, we anticipate adding future courses, and eventually a concentration in quantum science, to provide a pathway to these new careers for our majors. We are also partnering with local community colleges to extend this access to more students.

With the recently submitted NSF grant, Terletska is partnering with Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee; the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga; Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee; and Auburn University in Alabama to provide experiential training and increase the quantum workforce in the Southeast region.

We are working together with Fisk and Vanderbilt Universitys Wondry center for innovation on educational workforce for training students in quantum, she said.

Recruiting a diverse and interdisciplinary pool of students is part of the efforts. Terletska conducted recent quantum workshops with MTSUWISTEM Center(Women in STEM) students, Vanderbilt students and earlier this year with Fisk students in Nashville.

Last fall, Terletska and Naseri conducted a quantum workshop for Riverdale High School students, who had been invited to campus by MTSUDepartment of BiologyChairDennis Mullen. More workshops are planned.

Through the regional university partnerships, the initiative plans to create a network of researchers and students who can collaborate to tackle some of the biggest challenges in the field, Terletska said. Ultimately, the MTSU effort will provide students with the training necessary for the rising job market and career opportunities in the quantum sector, both local and nationwide.

The initiative also is working to establish partnerships with industry partners and K-20 teachers to develop a Tennessee quantum-ready workforce, she said.

To promote diversity and inclusion, the initiative will foster an interdisciplinary collaborative environment and engage underrepresented groups, Terletska added. This includes recruiting women, first-generation and minority students and introducing quantum through teacher workshops, high school camps and other events.

Our goal is to provide access to quantum education and research resources to a broad and diverse community and inspire individuals from all backgrounds to participate in quantum science, Terletska said. Through these efforts, we aim to nurture the next generation of quantum leaders and support the creation of a robust quantum ecosystem in Tennessee, positioning MTSU as a leader in this field in the region.

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Quantum education emerges with unlimited potential at MTSU - Newswise

BURNABY, British Columbia and PALO ALTO, Calif., April 19, 2023 D-Wave Quantum Inc., a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and servicesand the only provider building both annealing and gate-model quantum computers, today published a peer-reviewed milestone paper showing the performance of its 5,000 qubit Advantage quantum computer is significantly faster than classical compute on 3D spin glass optimization problems, an intractable class of optimization problems. This paper also represents the largest programmable quantum simulation reported to date.

The papera collaboration between scientists from D-Wave and Boston Universityentitled Quantum critical dynamics in a 5,000-qubit programmable spin glass, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature today and is available here. Building upon research conducted on up to 2,000 qubits last September, the study shows that the D-Wave quantum processor can compute coherent quantum dynamics in large-scale optimization problems. This work was done using D-Waves commercial-grade annealing-based quantum computer, which is accessible for customers to use today.

With immediate implications to optimization, the findings show that coherent quantum annealing can improve solution quality faster than classical algorithms. The observed speedup matches the theory of coherent quantum annealing and shows a direct connection between coherence and the core computational power of quantum annealing.

This research marks a significant achievement for quantum technology, as it demonstrates a computational advantage over classical approaches for an intractable class of optimization problems, said Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave. For those seeking evidence of quantum annealings unrivaled performance, this work offers definitive proof.

This work supports D-Waves ongoing commitment to relentless scientific innovation and product delivery, as the company continues development on its future annealing and gate model quantum computers. To date, D-Wave has brought to market five generations of quantum computers and launched an experimental prototype of its sixth-generation machine, the Advantage2 system, in June 2022. The full Advantage2 system is expected to feature 7,000+ qubits, 20-way connectivity and higher coherence to solve even larger and more complex problems. Read more about the research in our Medium post here.

Papers Authors and Leading Industry Voices Echo Support

This is an important advance in the study of quantum phase transitions on quantum annealers. It heralds a revolution in experimental many-body physics and bodes well for practical applications of quantum computing, said Wojciech Zurek, theoretical physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and leading authority on quantum theory. Dr. Zurek is widely renowned for his groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of the early universe as well as condensed matter systems through the discovery of the celebrated Kibble-Zurek mechanism. This mechanism underpins the physics behind the experiment reported in this paper. The same hardware that has already provided useful experimental proving ground for quantum critical dynamics can be also employed to seek low-energy states that assist in finding solutions to optimization problems.

Disordered magnets, such as spin glasses, have long functioned as model systems for testing solvers of complex optimization problems, said Gabriel Aeppli, professor of physics at ETH Zrich and EPF Lausanne, and head of the Photon Science Division of the Paul Scherrer Institut. Professor Aeppli coauthored the first experimental paper demonstrating advantage of quantum annealing over thermal annealing in reaching ground state of disordered magnets. This paper gives evidence that the quantum dynamics of a dedicated hardware platform are faster than for known classical algorithms to find the preferred, lowest energy state of a spin glass, and so promises to continue to fuel the further development of quantum annealers for dealing with practical problems.

As a physicist who has built my career on computer simulations of quantum systems, it has been amazing to experience first-hand the transformative capabilities of quantum annealing devices, said Anders Sandvik, professor of physics at Boston University and a coauthor of the paper. This paper already demonstrates complex quantum dynamics on a scale beyond any classical simulation method, and Im very excited about the expected enhanced performance of future devices. I believe we are now entering an era when quantum annealing becomes an essential tool for research on complex systems.

This work marks a major step towards large-scale quantum simulations of complex materials, said Hidetoshi Nishimori, Professor, Institute of Innovative Research, Tokyo Institute of Technology and one of the original inventors of quantum annealing. We can now expect novel physical phenomena to be revealed by quantum simulations using quantum annealing, ultimately leading to the design of materials of significant societal value.

This represents some of the most important experimental work ever performed in quantum optimization, said Dr. Andrew King, director of performance research at D-Wave. Weve demonstrated a speedup over simulated annealing, in strong agreement with theory, providing high-quality solutions for large-scale problems. This work shows clear evidence of quantum dynamics in optimization, which we believe paves the way for even more complex problem-solving using quantum annealing in the future. The work exhibits a programmable realization of lab experiments that originally motivated quantum annealing 25 years ago.

Not only is this the largest demonstration of quantum simulation to date, but it also provides the first experimental evidence, backed by theory, that coherent quantum dynamics can accelerate the attainment of better solutions in quantum annealing, said Mohammad Amin, fellow, quantum algorithms and systems, at D-Wave. The observed speedup can be attributed to complex critical dynamics during quantum phase transition, which cannot be replicated by classical annealing algorithms, and the agreement between theory and experiment is remarkable. We believe these findings have significant implications for quantum optimization, with practical applications in addressing real-world problems.

About D-Wave Quantum Inc.

D-Wave (NYSE: QBTS) is a leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems, software, and services, and is the worlds first commercial supplier of quantum computersand the only company building both annealing quantum computers and gate-model quantum computers. Our mission is to unlock the power of quantum computing today to benefit business and society. We do this by delivering customer value with practical quantum applications for problems as diverse as logistics, artificial intelligence, materials sciences, drug discovery, scheduling, cybersecurity, fault detection, and financial modeling. D-Waves technology is being used by some of the worlds most advanced organizations, including Volkswagen, Mastercard, Deloitte, Davidson Technologies, ArcelorMittal, Siemens Healthineers, Unisys, NEC Corporation, Pattison Food Group Ltd., DENSO, Lockheed Martin, Forschungszentrum Jlich, University of Southern California, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Source: D-Wave

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D-Wave Demonstrates First-Ever Coherent Quantum Spin Glass ... - HPCwire

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For two decades, it was believed that a possible quantum spin liquid was discovered in a synthetically produced material. In this case, it would not follow the laws of classical physics even on a macroscopic level, but rather those of the quantum world. There is great hope in these materials: they would be suitable for applications in quantum entangled information transmission (quantum cryptography) or even quantum computation.

Now, however, researchers from TU Wien and Toho University in Japan have shown that the promising material, -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3, is not the predicted quantum spin liquid, but a material that can be described using known concepts.

In their recent publication in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers report how they investigated the mysterious quantum state by measuring the electrical resistance in -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 as a function of temperature and pressure. In 2021, Andrej Pustogow from the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Wien has already investigated the magnetic properties of this material.

"Phase diagrams are the language of physics," says Pustogow, leading author of the current study. If you understand this language, a quick glance at the diagram shows how the properties of a material change depending on temperature and pressure. Water, for example, becomes solid at a temperature of 0C and gaseous at 100C. If you now change the pressure, for example by heating water in a pressure cooker, the boiling point increases to over 100C.

In order to now find out how the supposed quantum spin liquidi.e., a liquid in which the spins of the electrons can rotate freely and are quantum entangledbehaves under pressure, the research team carried out systematic resistance measurements. "The special thing is that the very shape of the phase boundary gives deep insights into the physics of magnetic quantum fluctuations, which actually can't be measured with electrical resistance per se," says Pustogow. This was only made possible by a method that is unique worldwide, which the Japanese partners used to study the material. "So we make the impossible possible and follow the entropy footprints of the magnetic moments and thus gain new insights into a supposed quantum spin fluid," continues Pustogow. Prof. Andrej Pustogow. Credit: Vienna University of Technology

The researchers also found that the phase diagram of -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 strongly resembles that of helium-3. Already back in the 1950s a Soviet researcher predicted that helium-3 behaves differently from conventional materials, turning from solid to liquid rather than from liquid to solid at low temperatures (of less than 0.3 Kelvin). Exactly the same effect occurs with electrons in solids when they freeze upon increasing temperature from a metallic state (mobile electrons) to a Mott insulator, in which the electrons are firmly bound to the atom and do not move.

This "Pomeranchuk effect," named after the researcher who predicted it, was also observed by the international research team in -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3: At higher temperatures, the material initially shows insulating behavior with rigid electrons that melt into a liquid (metal) when it cools. Below 6 Kelvin, however, the electrons freeze again and lose their magnetic moments as well.

"Although -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 itself is not a quantum spin liquid, our research provides important clues for further research into these materials. For example, our experiments help to better understand the mechanism of magnetoelastic coupling. If we succeed in controlling this effect, we may also be able to eventually realize a quantum spin liquid," Pustogow says.

More information: A. Pustogow et al, Chasing the spin gap through the phase diagram of a frustrated Mott insulator, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37491-z

Journal information: Nature Communications

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The quantum spin liquid that isn't one - Phys.org

Taylor says that the course and Harnishs senior thesis, a play she wrote about the course material, This is Your Computer on Drugswhich she is also directing on April 29 and 30 at Columbiarepresent the culmination of their three-year collaborative relationship.

Harnish took her first class with Taylor, Philosophy of Religion, during the spring semester of her freshman year, after which she decided to become a religion major instead of the double major she had declared in philosophy and theater. This was also when COVID hit, right when Harnish was writing her midterm paper, so the course was completed over Zoom. She then enrolled in two more courses with Taylor during the fall 2020 semester, Theory and Recovering Place, because he had hinted at retirement. Both classes were conducted virtually.

It was the depths of the pandemic, and Harnish, who had returned to Indiana, where she grew up, was having a hard time. She was living alone in a government-subsidized apartment for artists in Indianapolis, working two jobs, taking 16 course credit hours, and trying to cope with life during COVID.

Come midterms, she emailed Taylor to alert him that she was planning on withdrawing from Columbia for the rest of the semester because of her difficulty managing everything. He offered to Zoom with her later that day.

He talked me into staying in school, said Harnish, and its a good thing he did, because my final project for Recovering Place was my first full-length play, The Foundation of Roses.

The 60-page script is a ghost story about her challenging childhood experiences, said Taylor. It was so remarkable that I nominated it for the Religion Departments Peter Awn Award, which is given annually to the most outstanding undergraduate paper or project in the department. My colleagues agreed with my assessment, and Alethea won the award in 2021.

Harnish has since written four more plays. One of them, Phantasmagoria, a one-person, autobiographical show, made its Off-Broadway debut in June 2022 when she performed it at the Downtown Urban Arts Festival, where it won second place for the Best Play Award. The work was about leaving her rural roots in Indiana to attend college in New York.

According to Harnish, she was the first person from her high school to get into an Ivy League university, and traveling halfway across the country to a big city was a culture shock. Meeting Taylor, who became a mentor, was very beneficial for her.

Over time, the relationship has morphed from a mentor-mentee one into something more reciprocal, said Harnish.

Taylor, who started teaching at Williams College in 1973, and arrived full-time at Columbia in 2007, said that early on he detected something very special about Alethea. It was not just her exceptional intelligence, interest, maturity, and determination, but also a rare imaginative creativity.

Once campus came back to life in fall 2021, at the start of Harnishs junior year, the two continued their conversations in person, and Harnish started sending Taylor examples of her writing. They met regularly during Taylors office hours to discuss her work. One day, she asked him what he was working on for his next book. Hegel and quantum mechanics, he said.

In one of those strange moments the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the psychologist Carl Jung labeled synchronicity, said Taylor, Alethea said, Thats weird because I want to write and produce a play for my senior thesis about quantum physics and New Age spirituality.

Out of that convergence came the course theyre now co-teaching. They started by delving deeper into their shared interest in the material through reading and further discussion. Few people realize that personal computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the Metaverse all trace their origins to hippies and the drug culture of the 1960s, said Taylor.

The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that this would be the perfect subject for my last course, he continued. My professional career spanned precisely the half-century from the 1960s to the present.

When Taylor asked her to co-teach the course, Harnish was initially terrified. We had spent almost two years in conversation by that point, and I knew that this would be the opportunity of a lifetime, she said. His insisting that he was also learning from me gave me the confidence to take on such a role.

Although Harnish has fully embraced her leadership role with the course this semester, she is not sure if she will pursue a career in higher education. Her immediate plans after graduation are to travel to Greece this summer with a Brooklyn-based theater company, providing administrative support for its apprentice program. She then wants to spend a year in New York, completing the applications for various playwriting fellowships and other writing programs.

Back in the classroom, the next time Hippie Physics meets, Harnish, dressed in a jean shirt, long, pleated skirt, and cowboy boots, leads the discussion on the assigned readings from The Book by Alan Watts and Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. One of her touches has been to start every session spending a few moments listening to one of the eras classic rock songs, and then opening the floor to a parsing of the songs meaning. Todays selection is Led Zeppelins Stairway to Heaven.

After she stops the music, she says, What is the implication philosophically of there being a stairway to heaven for us? Were down here, and we have to get up there.

As he watches her effortlessly command the classroom, Taylor says, Strangely, the success of this course makes it both easier and more difficult for me to stop teaching. We hear much, perhaps too much, today about the problems with higher education, and especially with the humanities. But as I watch Alethea teach and her fellow undergraduates respond to her, I have hope for the future.

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A Student Graduates, a Professor Retires, but They Will Stay in Touch - Columbia University