You can’t beat the Heisenberg limit, but, with enough math, you can come close. (credit: Focus Features)
Quantum computing is all about controlling quantum states. Lately, news has been coming out about quantum computers computing stuff, with the underlying ability to control things taken for granted. But the truth is that control is still a limiting factor in the development of quantum computers.
At the heart of the matter is the qubit, a quantum object that is used to encode information. Part of the power of a quantum computer is that a qubit can be put into a superposition state—more on that below—that allows a kind of parallelism. The aim of a quantum algorithm is to manipulate the qubit’s superposition state so that when we measure the qubit, it returns a bit value that corresponds to the right answer.
And that means controlling the superposition state, which involves quite a bit of high-precision (and high-price) equipment. Improvements usually involve even more expensive equipment. But new research suggests that we might be able to improve our control by a factor of 1,000 using existing equipment and clever thinking.
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Source: Ars Technica – New form of qubit control may yield longer computation times