New Quantum Particle Calculations Make Waves in Field

Quantum computing, secure wireless communication and advances in quantum teleportation could be closer to reality now that a team of researchers has developed a more efficient way of measuring wave functions that describe the strange behavior of these subatomic particles.

In the realm of the very small, a field called quantum mechanics, particles can exist in multiple places at once, a phenomenon called superposition. To describe the huge numbers of positions and velocities a particle can have at any given moment, physicists use wave functions, which are essentially probability equations.

Quantum computing and quantum teleportation both rely on particles that exist in multiple places at once. For instance, the superposition of the particles allows computers to perform calculations and transfer information much faster than conventional computers. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Quantum Particles Explained]

But for quantum computing and quantum teleportation to work, they both need huge systems with lots of quantum particles that interact to create many dimensions. The huge multidimensional systems have complicated wave functions that the old method is not efficient enough to measure, Mohammad Mirhosseini, a graduate student at the University of Rochester and lead author on the paper describing the new technique, told Live Science. The new method makes it possible to calculate wave functions much faster and could help scientists further develop quantum technology.

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