Manipulating Giant Atoms for Enhanced Quantum Computing
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Recently, giant atoms have emerged as prime candidates for the development of advanced quantum simulators and computers, thanks to researchers demonstrating control over them for an extended period in room temperature environments.
Using electromagnetic pulses or laser light, scientists can modify the quantum properties of an atom—allowing for the adjustment of electron energy to encode information. Manipulating thousands of such atoms paves the way for constructing a quantum computer or simulating unusual quantum materials. However, spontaneous state changes in atoms can cause errors, with these atoms being controllable only within a limited “lifetime,” previously recorded at up to 1400 seconds. Despite advancements in trapping atoms longer, these methods typically required refrigeration systems, leading to logistical hurdles.
Zhenpu Zhang and Cindy Regal, along with their colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder, have shattered previous room temperature records by employing Rydberg atoms. These atoms have outer electrons positioned far from the nucleus, resulting in a larger atomic diameter. The research team successfully loaded these atoms into a vacuum chamber, effectively blocking interfering air particles and employing laser-based “optical tweezers” for precise atom manipulation. This technique is standard for controlling Rydberg atoms, noted for their sensitivity to electromagnetic fields and light.
The team enhanced their setup by adding a copper layer inside the container, which they cooled to -269°C (-452°F). This cooling shields the atoms from thermal interference that could alter their states. Additionally, Zhang explains that air particles condense onto the copper walls, akin to how water droplets form on cold surfaces, further improving the vacuum within the chamber. Consequently, they managed to maintain control of approximately 3000 seconds (or 50 minutes), which is nearly double that achieved in previous experiments.
Zhang has been developing this innovative setup for five years from the ground up. Regal adds, “This represents a significant evolution in how we approach these experiments.”
Clement Sayrin of the Kastler Brossel Laboratory in France emphasized that this new methodology may facilitate manipulating even more atoms. “3000 seconds is quite impressive. Achieving such extended lifetimes for these atoms demands considerable effort,” he states. However, as the number of atoms in the chamber increases, so does the requirement for additional lasers to control them, potentially shortening the atomic lifespans and introducing further engineering challenges, according to Sayrin.
The emergency department waiting room was packed as always, with patients crammed closely into hard metal chairs, as if they had been sitting for hours. Only those needing immediate care, like a heart attack, were seen right away.
One man had enough and slammed the glass window in front of the receptionist before storming out. He took a smoking break and verbally attacked the nurse, questioning her hard work as he left.
Although not a real event, this scene was portrayed in the Max series “The Pitt,” which airs its season finale on Thursday, set in a fictional Pittsburgh Hospital emergency room. The underlying theme of overwhelming overcrowding is a universal issue in this country, and not an easy one to solve.
“This system is at its breaking point,” stated Dr. Benjamin S. Abela, chairman of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
“The Pitt” depicts the daily struggle of emergency room doctors, nurses, medical students, custodians, and staff dealing with a variety of medical issues, from heart attacks and strokes to overdoses and severe burns. The show neatly resolves many of the complex issues in its 15 episodes, but reflects the real-life problems faced by medical systems operating beyond capacity.
The jammed waiting room and patients waiting for days in emergency rooms highlight a critical issue – overcrowding – labeled a “National Public Health Crisis” by the American University of Emergency Medicine.I’ll call boarding
Medical supplies in hallways and patients seen in hallways due to lack of available space further emphasize the strain on the system.
Instances of violence between patients with mental health issues and nurses are depicted in “The Pitt,” echoing the reality of the situation seen in emergency rooms nationwide.
Dr. Abela emphasizes that the show portrays a system on the brink of collapse, reflecting what is happening in emergency rooms across the country.
The complex nature of the issue, as explained by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emmanuel from the Health Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, points to the lack of a simple solution and the challenges posed by limited resources.
Financial constraints, patient flow issues, and capacity limitations in nursing homes contribute to the ongoing crisis in emergency departments.
Dr. Jeremy S. Faust from Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Emergency Medical Office highlights scheduling challenges for patient discharges and the role of primary care in alleviating overcrowding in emergency rooms.
In the real world and on screen in the “pits,” patients often end up in emergency rooms for issues that could be addressed by primary care physicians, emphasizing the need for better access to primary care services.
Dr. Emmanuel underlines the difficulties in finding and accessing primary care, leading many to seek immediate help in emergency rooms rather than wait for appointments.
The trend of seeking immediate solutions contributes to the ongoing problem of overcrowding in emergency rooms despite efforts to expand facilities.
Dr. Faust recalls how opening a new emergency room with more beds led to an influx of patients, demonstrating that expanding facilities alone does not solve the issue of overcrowding.
The legal battle between the US tech company and the UK government over access to customer data saw a closed-door hearing on Friday after the press was unable to enter the courtroom for the lawsuit.
Apple has appealed to the Investigation Power Court after the Home Office requested access to encrypted data stored on Apple’s cloud servers.
British media outlets such as The Guardian, The BBC, The Financial Times, and Computer Weekly tried to gain access to the court for public interest reasons but were denied entry.
The government’s representative in the case, Sir James Eady KC, was seen entering the court on Friday.
Apple is contesting technical capacity notices issued under the Investigation Powers Act, which require assistance from businesses in providing evidence to law enforcement. The notice requested access to Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service, which encrypts personal data stored remotely on a server.
Apple refused to comply with the order and challenged it in court, raising concerns about the legality of the national intelligence agency’s actions. Apple also pulled ADP from the UK, stating they have never created backdoor keys or master keys for their products or services.
ADP employs end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only the account owner can decrypt the data. Messaging services like iMessage and FaceTime are also end-to-end encrypted by default.
The government’s legal demands, known as Technical Capacity Notices, prohibit recipients from disclosing the order unless authorized by the Secretary of the Interior. Court hearings are supposed to be closed to the public only if strictly necessary to protect national security.
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers called for transparency regarding the UK government’s orders and urged further hearings and proceedings to shed light on the issue.
Reports suggest that British officials have started discussions with US counterparts to ensure that they are not seeking blanket access to US data, only information related to serious crimes like terrorism and child sexual abuse.
A metal-free organic 3-bromo-2-thienyl diketone exhibits fast and efficient room-temperature phosphorescence with high color purity under a variety of conditions, according to a new study led by chemists at Osaka University.
Artist's impression of fast phosphorescence. A beam of blue light enters the molecule, producing a thick yellow pillar, illustrating the acceleration of phosphorescence due to the mixing of singlet states. Image courtesy of YAP Co Ltd.
“Phosphorescence is a valuable optical feature used in applications such as OLEDs and cancer diagnostics,” said chemist Yosuke Tani of Osaka University and his colleagues.
“Until now, achieving highly efficient phosphorescence without using rare metals such as iridium or platinum has been a major challenge.”
“Phosphorescence, which occurs when a molecule goes from a high-energy state to a low-energy state, often competes with non-radiative processes where the molecule loses energy as heat,” the researchers added.
“This competition can slow down phosphorescence and make it less efficient.”
“Previous studies have shown that incorporating certain structural elements into organic molecules could make them phosphoresce faster, but these efforts have not matched the speed and efficiency of rare-metal-based materials.”
“Our breakthrough with thienyl diketones represents a major advance in this field.”
Dr. Tani and his co-authors were able to observe efficient narrowband room-temperature phosphorescence from 3-bromo-2-thienyl diketone in solution, amorphous polymer matrices, and crystalline solids.
“We discovered these molecules by chance and initially didn't understand why they performed so well,” Dr. Tani said.
“But as the research progressed, the pieces started to come together and we began to understand more.”
“Our work has led to a clearer understanding of the mechanisms behind the molecule's performance than any other organic phosphorescent material to date.”
“Still, we believe there is much more to explore and are excited about the potential applications.”
“This work provides new design guidelines for developing rare-metal-free organic phosphorescent materials, which have the potential to surpass and replace these materials in a variety of applications,” the authors conclude.
“The results of this research are expected to lead to major advances in areas such as OLEDs, lighting and medical diagnostics.”
This discovery paper In the journal Chemical Sciences.
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Yosuke Tani othersFast and efficient narrowband room-temperature phosphorescence from metal-free 1,2-diketones: rational design and mechanism. Chemical SciencesPublished online June 3, 2024; doi: 10.1039/D4SC02841D
Snowboard boots on the kitchen table. A handle in the bedroom. And clothes are everywhere, and there's no system for determining which ones are clean.
These are just some of the sights that will tell you you're in the boys' room. It's a bedroom with little form or function, inhabited by a grown man who doesn't give much thought to either concept. The interior is usually made up of random trinkets, like your favorite old skateboard on the wall or your childhood action figures on the windowsill. Sneakers and trash are often so dense that it’s hard to see the floor. The thing about furniture is that there might be some furniture. Otherwise, the resident sleeps on a bare mattress placed directly on the floor with one pillow and an uncovered comforter.
To an outsider, it may seem immature and even unkind. Now, comedian Rachel Coster is exploring this phenomenon in her TikTok/Instagram series. boy room.
In every episode, a man in his 20s or 30s living in New York City offers his bedroom for anthropological research. Coster walks around the room and asks the boys questions about the decorations.
“What's that over there?” she asked Luke, 24, pointing to a dirty container next to a step stool. “It’s a bottle of bleach,” he answered.
“What's with the hat?” she asked Jerome, 32, pointing to the baseball cap under the bed. “That’s a cat’s hat,” he explains.
Some videos go in an even more surreal direction. One video features a windowless room with residents' nicknames painted on the walls, like something out of a horror movie. Another boy is wearing a nightcap and has an empty condom box taped to the wall.
Rachel Coster investigates a phenomenon familiar to many who have dated in New York. Photo: Provided by the gymnasium
Koster then offers some very practical tips for improving your space. “My vision for Blake’s room is to install a trash can for him,” she suggests. “Place all clothing on the floor on readily available racks.”
The boys in question are mainly Although he may be a little confused when he receives attention, he is sincere and likable. One commenter on Instagram said: “Blake seems like a really level-headed person. I think we have a lot in common.”
The idea for the boy room came from a friend of Koster’s who said her room “scared every girl I’ve ever taken.” She said she could help fix it within a few hours. In just her five weeks since the show began, Koster’s most-watched video has been her 2.7 million views on TikTok, and her Boy Room followers have surpassed her 121,000.
Perhaps it’s because she finds such a rich theme. Socializing, especially dating, means being exposed to a wealth of unknown homes and lifestyles. Family life of young people special scrutiny. For example, on TikTok, users canThree typical boy apartments in New York City” (the eldest of the siblings, the “dad has money” guy, and the guy with the fireplace that will hurt your feelings).Natural things in my boyfriend’s apartment” (e.g. a fire hydrant that has been recalled for some reason).
Why on earth is the men’s room the way it is? Coster theorizes that while girls are raised with the expectation that they will one day take care of the house and “look out for each other” when it comes to cleanliness, “that’s not the case when boys go to each other’s rooms.” I’m wearing it. ‘Hey, hey, why don’t you have more than one pillow?’ And, of course, there’s the relentless advertising, she says, ‘Men are sold on ‘you have to be stronger.’ You need focus. You have to be hardworking.’For girls, “You have to be beautiful, you have to be clean, and your house has to be clean.”
My lover, who was probably trying to send a message, warned me about the boy room first. She’s only just turned 39 and I’m just a boy, with a room where I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I’m eligible to be on the show. Since I live on the other side of the country, Ms. Koster kindly agreed to do an evaluation via video chat.
Her first question was how to get it across the bedroom since there is a TV stand at the foot of the bed and together they take up the length of the room. I explained that I would have to climb over the bed to get to the closet. “It’s amazing,” she said. “And all your clothes are shoved in storage shelves,” she said of the boxes in the closet where I stuff my clothes (I don’t have a dresser, but I do have storage shelves, so there is no need).
Some of the posters in my room have not yet fallen. Photo: The Guardian
She also took note of my pile of keepsakes (which used to be filled with keepsake bags). There I keep things I can’t bear to throw away, like postcards, the magic wand from my Halloween costume from seven years ago, and a brochure from a hang gliding museum in Texas I don’t remember visiting. Her grandfather’s electric chess set is also on the mountain. “Yeah, that’s where he wants to be,” Koster said. “How long has it been sitting there?”
“Maybe it’s because I moved here a year and a half ago?”
“So how often do you look at them and say, ‘Wow, thank God I have this ‘Hoppy Easter’ card?”
Coster “loves tossing” things he doesn’t normally use. “I’d rather have noise-cancelling headphones than a million letters from her parents,” she said, adding: “Maybe if my parents had died, I might have felt differently.”
She also suggested putting memorabilia in a chest, or at least organizing the pile into smaller piles. “You’ll find that there’s a better shape to it than just putting it in a lump in the corner of the room.” Her other key advice was to put back posters that had fallen off the wall, but the theme I thought it might be a good idea to change it a little. I suffer from a condition that could be diagnosed as extreme Anglophilia, and the poster included her two maps of Britain, a vintage tube ad, and an overhead view of London. Masu. She said, “I’m going to introduce France or some other white European country to get you excited.”
After all, the boy room is for boys. Photo: Provided by the gymnasium
Actually, I already have a discarded poster from France, but the simplicity of her other suggestions made me want to take action. I did it the next weekend, reupholstered the posters, and got rid of some of my worst memorabilia. Two monocles with broken glasses.
Koster understands that getting rid of things can be difficult. “I don’t think sentimentality and peace of mind really go together, because if you’re always thinking about the past and always trying to protect things, it’s really hard to stay in the present.”, it is also rewarding to correct your posture. “When I wake up in a clean room, I feel completely in heaven.”
Boy Room has plenty of jokes, but what sets it apart from your standard internet troll is its underlying warmth. Yes, we’re laughing in the boys’ room, but Koster works with a small team that includes a director, cinematographer, and editor. sexy damion, very much on the boy’s side. she told one of the boys’ room customers. “This has nothing to do with your personality. You’re nice. You just don’t know what you’re doing with your space.”
She, and by extension we, simply want what’s best for these men, starting with their ability to move from one side of the room to the other without tripping. “My true wish is that if possible, everyone should love themselves enough to value their own space,” she said.
For the first time, physicists have directly imaged small clusters of noble gas atoms at room temperature. This result opens up exciting possibilities for fundamental research in condensed matter physics and applications in quantum information technology.
Xenon nanoclusters between two graphene layers. Sizes range from 2 to 10 atoms. Image credit: Manuel L'Engle.
“When I was researching the use of ion irradiation to modify the properties of graphene and other two-dimensional materials, I noticed something unusual. They can become trapped between the sheets,” the University of Vienna said. Dr. Jani Kotaski and his colleagues.
“This happens when noble gas ions pass through the first graphene layer fast enough to pass through, but not the second graphene layer.”
“Once trapped between the layers, the noble gases are free to move because they do not form chemical bonds.”
“But to accommodate the noble gas atoms, the graphene bends to form tiny pockets.”
“Here, two or more noble gas atoms can meet and form two-dimensional noble gas nanoclusters that are ordered and densely packed.”
The researchers' method overcomes the difficulty that noble gases do not form stable structures under experimental conditions at ambient temperatures.
“We observed these clusters using a scanning transmission electron microscope, and they are really fascinating and very fun to look at,” said Dr. Manuel L'Engle, a physicist at the University of Vienna.
“They rotate, jump, grow, and shrink as we imagine them.”
“Getting the atoms between the layers was the most difficult part of the job.”
“Achieving this gives us a simple system to study fundamental processes related to the growth and behavior of materials.”
“The next step is to study the properties of clusters containing different noble gases and how they behave at low and high temperatures,” Dr Kotasky added.
“With the use of noble gases in light sources and lasers, these new structures may enable future applications such as quantum information technology.”
a paper The findings were published in this week's magazine Natural materials.
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M. Langre other. Two-dimensional few atomic noble gas clusters within a graphene sandwich. nut.meter, published online on January 11, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41563-023-01780-1
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