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posted by cmn32480 on Friday March 31 2017, @02:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the shhhhhhhhhhhh dept.

How to reliably transfer quantum information when the connecting channels are impacted by detrimental noise? Scientists at the University of Innsbruck and TU Wien (Vienna) have presented new solutions to this problem.

Nowadays we communicate via radio signals and send electrical pulses through long cables. This could change soon, however: Scientists have been working intensely on developing methods for quantum information transfer. This would enable tap-proof data transfer or, one day, even the linking of quantum computers.

Quantum information transfer requires reliable information transfer from one quantum system to the other, which is extremely difficult to achieve. Independently, two research teams – one at the University of Innsbruck and the other at TU Wien (Vienna) - have now developed a new quantum communication protocol. This protocol enables reliable quantum communication even under the presence of contaminating noise. Both research groups work with the same basic concept: To make the protocol immune to the noise, they add an additional element, a so-called quantum oscillator, at both ends of the quantum channel.

Scientists have conducted quantum communication experiments for a long time. "Researchers presented a quantum teleportation protocol already in the 1990s. It permits transferring the state of one quantum system to another by using optical photons," says Benoit Vermersch, Postdoc in Peter Zoller's group at the University of Innsbruck. This works also over great distances but one has to accept that a lot of the photons are lost and only a tiny fraction reaches the detector.

"Our goal was to find a way to reliably transfer a quantum state from one place to the other without having to do it several times to make it work," explains Peter Rabl from the Atominstitut, TU Wien.


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Direct Counterfactual Quantum Communication Claimed 49 comments

Futurism reports:

For the first time in the history of quantum mechanics, scientists have been able to transmit a black and white image without having to send any physical particles. The phenomenon can be explained using the Zeno effect, the same effect that explains that movement itself is impossible.

The journal article is in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1614560114)

Wikipedia has an article about the quantum Zeno effect.

Related stories:
Physicists Break Distance Record for Quantum Teleportation
First Covert Communication System with Lasers
Long-Range Secure Quantum Communication System Developed
China's "Quantum-Enabled Satellite" Launches
How to Outwit Noise in Quantum Communication


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:18PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:18PM (#487259)
    To make the protocol immune to the noise, they add an additional element, a so-called quantum oscillator, at both ends of the quantum channel.

    Does the quantum oscillator quickly toggle between Not-Un-Dead-Cat and Un-Not-Dead-Cat?
       

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday March 31 2017, @09:20PM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Friday March 31 2017, @09:20PM (#487334) Journal

      Quantum oscillator? Well at least they are not just making things up and saying they have a "flux capacitor" or a "dimensional over-thruster", like Doc or Buckaroo Banzai.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 31 2017, @07:40PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday March 31 2017, @07:40PM (#487277)

    So, no actual information can be transmitted in Quantum communication - spooky action at a distance - it's still dependent on a conventional information communication channel to function - it's just the quantum state that can be transferred without any information about itself on the conventional channel, making it secret or unknowable without the conventional channel, but also useless without the conventional channel.

    It's nice that they're reducing the amount of statistics that need to be collected to accomplish this, but sad that article summaries continue to mislead.

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    • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday April 03 2017, @02:28PM

      by Rivenaleem (3400) on Monday April 03 2017, @02:28PM (#488198)

      For everything else, there's Monster Cables!

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