Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has announced that a joint team with D-Wave Quantum Systems is examining fluctuations in inducing magnetic ordering on a network of qubits. The team discovered that these fluctuations, when utilized on a D-Wave quantum annealing platform, can decrease the total energy of the interacting magnetic moments.
The research delved into the complex dynamics of approximately 2,000 qubits arranged in an asymmetric hexagonal lattice. According to LANL's press release, the team scrutinized the impact of factors that induce disorder on magnetic moments, specifically focusing on the small magnetic field created by superconducting qubits. By introducing fluctuations driven by thermal and quantum effects, they experimented with entropy, magnetic moments, and disorder on their designed "frustrated" magnetic lattice. Interestingly, under certain conditions, configurations with a clustered distribution of defects emerged as the more likely state.
"In this research, rather than focusing on the pursuit of superior quantum computer performance over classical counterparts, we aimed at exploiting a dense network of interconnected qubits to observe and understand quantum behavior," said Alejandro Lopez-Bezanilla, a physicist in the theoretical division at LANL.
Cristiano Nisoli, laboratory physicist and co-author of the study at LANL added: "The idea that we could promote order by adding thermal fluctuations and even enhance it by adding quantum fluctuations may seem paradoxical. But we’ve been able to observe in detail how fluctuations influence the mechanisms and physical conditions leading to defect clustering. That insight can point us to improvements in the way quantum systems are built."
Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos National Laboratory is located approximately 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe. It operates as a multi-program research center focusing on nuclear weapons design and production while addressing nuclear threats and conducting national security science, technology, and engineering according to its About webpage.