Google Provides Details About Two Research Projects Using Quantum Processors to Study Quantum Materials

(SiliconAngle) Google LLC has provided the details about two internal research projects focused on using quantum processors to study quantum materials, a category of materials that can’t be explained by classical physics.
–In the first project, the company’s researchers found a way of simulating quantum materials with more accuracy than was possible until now. As part of the other research initiative, they developed a new method for carrying out simulations that could have applications in future experiments.
In the first research project that Google detailed today, the search giant’s scientists found a method of filtering computing errors and thereby increasing simulation accuracy. They tested the method by using one of Google’s internally developed quantum computers to run a simulation of a tiny quantum material wire.
Google’s scientists said that they managed to improve simulation accuracy significantly using the method. “Despite being an 18-qubit algorithm consisting of over 1,400 logical operations, a significant computational task for near-term devices, we are able to achieve a total error as low as 1%,” detailed Charles Neill and Zhang Jiang, senior research scientists at Google’s Quantum AI unit.
–In the second project Google detailed today, the search giant developed a new way of studying electrons as part of quantum material simulations. The company’s scientists configured a quantum processor’s qubits to “act” as electrons in order to simulate their physical properties. By carrying out a certain sequence of computing operations, the qubits could simulate changes in the behavior of the electrons they represented.
“Our results provide an intuitive picture of interacting electrons and serve as a benchmark for simulating quantum materials with superconducting qubits,” Google’s scientists wrote.