Qubits Communicating Through “Topological Radio Channels”
Topological photonics offers route to qubit-to-qubit communication
Excerpts and salient points ~
+ A new toolbox for sophisticated quantum simulators, in which qubits can directly communicate through so-called “topological radio channels”, has been proposed by physicists in Germany and Spain. Researchers led by Alejandro González-Tudela at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching constructed the theory by transferring the principles of topology from condensed matter to photonics.
From this model, González-Tudela and colleagues propose a toolbox for allowing two specific, distant qubits to communicate with each other through a so-called topological radio channel. By tuning the topology of the waveguide to induce specific chiral bound states, particular pairs of qubits could be consciously chosen to interact with each other on these different channels.
+ Recent studies have explored how the principles of topology can be transferred from condensed matter to photonics, potentially allowing researchers to induce exotic properties of light by engineering topological materials. In this new study, González-Tudela’s team – which included physicists at the Institute of Materials Science of Madrid – showed that a variety of unprecedented quantum optical phenomena can emerge when these topological photonic systems are coupled to quantum emitters.
+ The researchers started by describing a simple model in which a line of photon-emitting qubits is coupled to a one-dimensional topological photonic waveguide, and the emission frequency of one qubit lies in the energy gap where no electron states can exist in the solid. In this situation, the bound state of the qubit becomes chiral, meaning it can only be located on either the left or right side of the emitter. The end result is that information can only flow in one direction, leaving the other direction completely dark.
Source: physicsworld. Sam Jarman, Topological photonics offers route to qubit-to-qubit communication…
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