The "splitting" phonon exhibits quantum properties

Science and Technology Daily (reporter Zhang Jiaxin) A few days ago, a team led by Professor Andrew Cleland of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) of the University of Chicago used a device called an acoustic beam splitter to "split" phonons, thereby demonstrating their quantum properties. They demonstrated that beam splitters can be used to induce a special quantum superposition state of a phonon and further generate interference between two phonons

Science and Technology Daily (reporter Zhang Jiaxin) A few days ago, a team led by Professor Andrew Cleland of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) of the University of Chicago used a device called an acoustic beam splitter to "split" phonons, thereby demonstrating their quantum properties. They demonstrated that beam splitters can be used to induce a special quantum superposition state of a phonon and further generate interference between two phonons. This achievement was published in the latest issue of Science, marking a key first step in creating a new type of Quantum computer.

When people hear continuous music, it is actually tiny quantum particles called phonons wrapped in transmission. The laws of quantum mechanics state that quantum particles cannot split, but PME researchers are exploring what happens when phonons split.

In this experiment, the pitch of the phonons used by the researchers was approximately one million times the pitch that can be heard by the human ear. To demonstrate the quantum capabilities of these phonons, the team created a beam splitter that can split a beam of sound in half, emit half, and reflect the other half back to its source.

Quantum physics believes that a single phonon is indivisible. Therefore, when the team sends a single phonon to the beam splitter, instead of splitting, it enters a state of quantum superposition, where phonons are simultaneously reflected and transmitted. Observing (measuring) phonons will cause the Quantum state to collapse into one of the two outputs.

The team found a method to maintain this superposition state by capturing phonons in two quantum bits. In fact, only one qubit captures phonons, but researchers can only distinguish which qubit it is after measurement: in other words, quantum superposition transfers from phonons to two qubits.

Researchers measured the superposition of two quantum bits and obtained evidence that the beam splitter can create the gold standard for quantum entangled states.

In another experiment, the team demonstrated a fundamental quantum effect called the Hun Eu Mandel effect using phonons. Although quantum bits can only capture one phonon at a time, quantum bits placed in the opposite direction can never "hear" phonons, proving that two phonons move in the same direction. This phenomenon is called biphonon interference.

The success of the two phonon interference experiment is the last step to prove that phonons are equal to photons, which means that they have the technology needed to build a linear mechanical Quantum computer, and that phonons will probably become part of a hybrid Quantum computer.

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