Latest news with #BaryonAntibaryonSymmetryExperiment
Scientific American
5 hours ago
- Science
- Scientific American
First-Ever Antimatter Qubit Could Help Crack Cosmic Mysteries
Physicists have created a quantum bit, or qubit, the fundamental storage unit of a quantum computer, out of antimatter for the first time. The researchers used magnetic fields to trap a single antiproton—the antimatter version of the protons inside of atoms—and measured how fast its spin changed direction for almost a full minute. The findings were published on July 23 in the journal Nature. Quantum computers made of antimatter qubits are still a long way off and would be much harder to build than matter quantum computers—which are already extremely tricky. The feat is exciting, however, because of what such antimatter experiments could reveal about the universe itself. A particle's spin can be in a state of 'up' or 'down,' just like a computer bit can take on a state of '0' or '1.' But where a classical bit must be in either of the latter two states, the antiproton qubit's spin could be up, down or any combination of both at the same time. This fantastical ability of qubits is what sets them apart from classical bits and promises that quantum computers will one day offer incredible improvements in calculation speed and ability compared with today's computers. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The experiment demonstrated an unprecedented level of control over antimatter, says physicist Vincenzo Vagnoni of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), who was not involved in the experiment. 'This is thanks to [the researchers'] development of highly efficient antiproton magnetic traps, which can keep antiprotons 'alive' without them annihilating with matter. While we are still far from the curvature engines of the Star Trek saga, this is the closest thing to them that has been developed on Earth so far,' Vagnoni says, referring to the science-fiction franchise's warp drive engines fueled by antimatter. Setting sci-fi aspirations aside, the achievement could help physicists solve the mystery of why the universe is dominated by matter and not antimatter—in other words, why the universe around us exists at all. 'If you are just looking into the physics, there's absolutely no reason why there should be more matter than antimatter,' says Stefan Ulmer, a physicist at CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics near Geneva, and spokesperson for its Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE). Yet there is almost no antimatter in the cosmos, whereas matter is abundant. 'The big motivation for these experiments is: we are looking for the reason why there might be a matter-antimatter asymmetry,' Ulmer says. One potential reason could be a difference between the proton and the antiproton in a property called the magnetic moment. Protons and antiprotons have electric charge—the proton's charge is positive, and the antiproton's is negative. These charges make the particles act like little bar magnets that point in different directions depending on the orientation of their spin. The strength and orientation of the magnet is called the particle's magnetic moment. If it turns out that the magnetic moments of protons and antiprotons are not the same, that could explain why matter won out over antimatter in the universe. So far, measurements have found no difference between the two to an accuracy of 1.5 parts in a billion. But scientists had never before been able to measure the oscillation of the magnetic moment of single protons or antiprotons—or of any other fundamental particles. Similar previous experiments only measured the phenomenon in ions or charged atoms. 'We can now have full control over the spin state of a particle,' says the new study's lead author Barbara Latacz of CERN and the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Japan. 'For fundamental physicists, it's a super exciting opportunity.' The researchers hope to use the technique to improve the precision of the measurement of the magnetic moment in protons and antiprotons by a factor of 25. If they ever discover a difference or find some other discrepancy between matter and antimatter, then antimatter quantum computers could become worth building, despite the difficulty. 'If there is any surprise in matter-antimatter asymmetry, it could be interesting to do basically the same calculations with matter qubits and antimatter qubits and compare the results,' says Ulmer, who is also based at RIKEN.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
Physicists Create First-Ever Antimatter Qubit, Making the Quantum World Even Weirder
Readers following our existential physics coverage may remember a recent breakthrough from CERN concerning matter's evil twin, antimatter. An outstanding mystery in physics is that our universe contains more matter than antimatter, contradicting most theoretical predictions. Scientists, therefore, understandably want to explain why and how this is the case. CERN announced yet another significant leap for studying antimatter—and this time, the achievement creeps into the realm of quantum computing. In a Nature paper published on July 23, CERN's Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) collaboration announced the first-ever demonstration of an antimatter quantum bit, or qubit—the smallest unit of information for quantum computers. The qubit in question is an antiproton, a proton's antimatter counterpart, caught in a curious quantum swing—arcing back and forth between 'up' and 'down' spin states in perfect rhythm. The oscillation lasted for 50 seconds. The technical prowess that enabled this result represents a significant leap forward in our understanding of antimatter, the researchers claim. For the experiment, the team applied a technique called coherent quantum transition spectroscopy, which measures—with chilling precision—a particle's magnetic moment, or its behavior inside magnetic fields. First, the team brought in some antiprotons from CERN's antimatter factory, trapping the particles in an electromagnetic Penning trap—a superposition of magnetic fields. Next, they set up a second multi-trap inside the same magnet, extracting individual antiprotons to measure and tweak the particle's spin states in the process. Quantum states are fragile and easily disturbed by outside distractions. The wrong push can immediately send them spiraling down the drain toward decoherence—at which point the system loses the valuable information physicists hope to find. This fundamental limitation of quantum systems was a major concern for the BASE collaboration, who in 2017 used a similar setup to the new experiment to confirm that protons and antiprotons had practically identical magnetic moments. The team made substantial revisions to its technology, paying special attention to developing the mechanisms needed to suppress and eliminate decoherence. This hard work paid off; the antiproton performed a stable quantum swing for 50 seconds—a motion akin to how qubits exist in superpositions of states, which theoretically could allow them to store exponential loads of information. Additionally, it marked the first time physicists observed this phenomenon in a single free nuclear magnetic moment, whereas previous experiments had only seen it in large groups of particles. 'This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to single matter and antimatter systems in precision experiments,' BASE spokesperson Stefan Ulmer said in a statement. That said, the team doesn't believe the new results will introduce antimatter qubits to quantum computing, at least not anytime soon. 'It does not make sense to use [the antimatter qubit] at the moment for quantum computers, because, simply speaking, engineering related to production and storage of antimatter is much more difficult than for normal matter,' Latacz explained, adding that since matter and antimatter are known to share fundamental properties, opting for the latter wouldn't make practical sense. 'However, if in the future [we find] that antimatter behaves differently than matter, then it may be interesting to consider this.' There are additional improvements the team hopes to make, which will happen sometime very soon, Latacz said. The upgrades to BASE—termed BASE-STEP—will greatly improve our capacity to study antiprotons with higher precision and allow us to 'improve the measurement of the magnetic moment of the antiproton by at least a factor of 10, and in a longer perspective even a factor of 100,' she said. The new breakthrough could contribute to engineering advances in quantum computing, atomic clocks, and other areas. But as the researchers emphasize, such technological applications aren't anything we should expect any time soon. Nevertheless, the result itself presents some fascinating lessons for fundamental physics—questions that may take years to answer, but to quote physicist Sean Carroll from the other recent CERN finding, 'Well, it's a small part of a much bigger puzzle—but you know, every part matters.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists just made the 1st antimatter 'qubit.' Here's why it could be a big deal
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Physicists at CERN — home of the Large Hadron Collider — have for the first time made a qubit from antimatter, holding an antiproton in a state of quantum superposition for almost a minute. This landmark achievement has been performed by scientists working as part of the BASE collaboration at CERN. BASE is the Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment, which is designed to measure the magnetic moment of antiprotons – in essence, how strongly they interact with magnetic fields. However, while qubits are commonly associated with quantum computing, in this case the antiproton qubit will be used to test for differences between ordinary matter and antimatter. It will specifically help probe the question of why we live in a universe so dominated by ordinary matter when matter and antimatter should have been created in equal quantities during the Big Bang. They're opposites of one another, right? A proton and antiproton have the same mass but opposite charges, for example. In physics, the mirror-image properties between matter and antimatter is referred to as charge-parity-time (CPT) symmetry. CPT symmetry also says that a particle and its antiparticle should experience the laws of physics in the same way, meaning that they should feel gravity or electromagnetism with the same strength, for example (that first one has actually been tested, and indeed an antiprotons falls at the same rate as a proton). So, theoretically, when the universe came into existence, there should have been a 50-50 chance of antimatter or regular matter particles being created. But for some reason, that didn't happen. It's very weird. Even the BASE project found that, to a precision of parts per billion, protons and antiprotons do have the same magnetic moment. Alas, more symmetry. However, the BASE apparatus has enabled physicists to take things one step further. Antiproton antics When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate one another in a burst of gamma-ray photons, so BASE has to keep them apart. To do so, it uses something called Penning traps, which can hold charged particles in position thanks to the careful deployment of electric and magnetic fields. BASE has two primary Penning traps. One is called the analysis trap, which measures the precession of the magnetic moment around a magnetic field, and the other is the precision trap, which is able to flip the quantum spin of a particle and measure that particle's oscillation in a magnetic field. Quantum physics tells us that particles are born in a state of superposition. Take, for instance, the property of quantum spin, which is just one example of the weirdness of the quantum universe. Despite the name, spin does not describe the actual rotation of a particle; rather, it describes a property that mimics the rotation. How do we know that it isn't a real rotation? If it were, then the properties of quantum spin would mean particles would be spinning many times faster than the speed of light — which is impossible. So, fundamental particles like electrons, protons and antiprotons have quantum spin values, even if they are not really spinning, and these values can be expressed either as a whole number or a fraction. The quantum spin of a proton and antiproton can be 1/2 or –1/2, and it is the quantum spin that generates the particle's magnetic moment. Because of the magic of quantum superposition, which describes how all the possible quantum states exist synchronously in a particle's quantum wave-function, a proton or antiproton can have a spin of both 1/2 or –1/2 at the same time. That is, at least until they are measured and the quantum wave-function that describes the quantum state of the particle collapses onto one value. That's another bit of weirdness of the quantum world — particles have all possible properties at once until they are observed, like Schrödinger's cat being alive and dead at the same time in a box, until someone opens the box. In fact, any kind of interaction with the outside world causes the wave function to collapse in a process known as decoherence. Why this happens is a subject of great debate between the various interpretations of quantum physics. Regardless, by giving an antiproton that is held firmly in the precision trap just the right amount of energy, BASE scientists have been able to hold an antiproton in a state of superposition without decohering for about 50 seconds — a record for antimatter (this has previously been achieved with ordinary matter particles for much longer durations). In doing so, they formed a qubit out of the antiproton. Keep the qubits away! A qubit is a quantum version of a byte used in computer processing. A typical, binary byte can have a value of either 1 or 0. A qubit can be both 1 and 0 at the same time (or, have a spin of 1/2 and –1/2 at the same time), and a quantum computer using qubits could therefore, in principle, vastly accelerate information processing times. However, the antiproton qubit is unlikely to find work in quantum computing because ordinary matter can be used for that more easily without the risk of the antimatter annihilating. Instead, the antiproton qubit could be used to further test for differences between matter and antimatter, and whether CPT symmetry is violated at any stage. "This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to single matter and antimatter systems in precision experiments," said BASE spokesperson Stefan Ulmer, of the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Japan, in a statement. "Most importantly, it will help BASE to perform antiproton moment measurements in future experiments with 10- to 100-fold improved precision." Currently, BASE's experiments have to take place at CERN, where the antimatter is created in the Large Hadron Collider. However, the next phase of antimatter research will be BASE-STEP (Symmetry Tests in Experiments with Portable Antiprotons), which is a device that contains a portable Penning trap, allowing researchers to move antiprotons securely away from CERN to laboratories with quieter, purpose-built facilities that can reduce exterior magnetic field fluctuations that might interfere with magnetic moment experiments. RELATED STORIES — The Mystery of Antimatter — How 2024 brought us deeper into the world of particle physics — Modern-day alchemy! Scientists turn lead into gold at the Large Hadron Collider "Once it is fully operational, our new offline precision Penning trap system, which will be supplied with antiprotons transported by BASE-STEP, could allow us to achieve spin coherence times maybe even ten times longer than in current experiments, which will be a game-changer for baryonic antimatter research," said RIKEN's Barbara Latacz, who is the lead author of the new study. The results are described in a paper that was published on July 23 in the journal Nature.
