Quantum Shadows: Images Hidden in Noise

A groundbreaking phase imaging method, resistant to phase noise and effective in dim light, has been developed by international researchers. This technique, detailed in Science Advances, enhances imaging capabilities in fields ranging from medical research to art preservation. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com



Innovative quantum-inspired imaging technique excels in low-light conditions, offering new prospects in medical imaging and art conservation.

Researchers at the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Physics with colleagues from Stanford University and Oklahoma State University have introduced a quantum-inspired phase imaging method based on light intensity correlation measurements that is robust to phase noise. The new imaging method can operate even with extremely dim illumination and can prove useful in emerging applications such as in infrared and X-ray interferometric imaging and quantum and matter-wave interferometry.

Revolutionizing Imaging Techniques
No matter if you take photos of a cat with your smartphone or image cell cultures with an advanced microscope, you do this by measuring the intensity (brightness) of light pixel by pixel. Light is characterized, not only by its intensity but also by its phase. Interestingly, transparent objects can become visible if you’re able to measure the phase delay of light that they introduce.   READ MORE...

Time Crystal

Google’s quantum computer has been used to build a “time crystal” according to freshly-published research, a new phase of matter that upends the traditional laws of thermodynamics. 

Despite what the name might suggest, however, the new breakthrough won’t let Google build a time machine.

Time crystals were first proposed in 2012, as systems that continuously operate out of equilibrium. Unlike other phases of matter, which are in thermal equilibrium, time crystals are stable yet the atoms which make them up are constantly evolving.

At least, that’s been the theory: scientists have disagreed on whether such a thing was actually possible in reality. Different levels of time crystals that could or could not be generated have been argued, with demonstrations of some that partly – but not completely – meet all the relevant criteria. 

In a new research preprint by researchers at Google, along with physicists at Princeton, Stanford, and other universities, it’s claimed that Google’s quantum computer project has delivered what many believed impossible. 

Preprints are versions of academic papers that are published prior to going through peer-review and full publishing; as such, their findings can be challenged or even overturned completely during that review process. READ MORE