University of Innsbruck Reports Quantum Simulation on Hardware Available Today

(UofInnsbruck) Physicists from Innsbruck, Austria, have opened the door to the simulation of previously unsolvable problems in chemistry, materials research or high-energy physics. The research groups led by Rainer Blatt and Peter Zoller reported in the journal Nature how they simulated particle physics phenomena on 20 quantum bits and how the quantum simulator self-verified the result for the first time.
The analog simulation of quantum systems in a quantum computer also has narrow limits. Using a new method, researchers around Christian Kokail, Christine Maier und Rick van Bijnen at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have now surpassed these limits. They use a programmable ion trap quantum computer with 20 quantum bits as a quantum coprocessor, in which quantum mechanical calculations that reach the limits of classical computers are outsourced. “We use the best features of both technologies,” explains experimental physicist Christine Maier. “The quantum simulator takes over the computationally complex quantum problems and the classical computer solves the remaining tasks.”