When the directions of the spin-orbit coupling and magnetic field are not perpendicular, in addition to the topological phase and the gapped nontopological phase, a gapless superconducting phase appears (condensed matter physics.)
In the previous post, I covered the Microsoft's new announcement that they have identified a new particle that may pave the way to build a new quantum platform far more capable than today's NISQ era quantum platforms such as Google, ionq, IBM, and the rest of the crowd. Time will tell, but this post covers one of the brains behind the discovery. Dr. Freedman at Microsoft Station Q. I have also included the PDF that explains the complicated math involved with the discovery.
Freedman has received numerous other awards and honors including Sloan and Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Medal of Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Mathematical Society. In addition to winning a Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in 1986 in Berkeley, he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in 1983 in Warsaw and at the ICM in 1998 in Berlin. He currently works at Microsoft Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where his team is involved in the development of the topological quantum computer.
Station Q, based at the University of California, Santa Barbara will work on ways to construct machines with multiple quantum bits (qubits), under the leadership of Dr Michael Freedman, a mathematician and winner of the prestigious Fields Medal.
Condensed matter physics deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. The study of topological superconducting wires, which host Microsoft proposed QC hardware design based on Majorana zero modes (MZMs) at their ends, is a field of intense research in condensed matter physics, not only because of the interesting fundamental physics involved but also because of possible applications in decoherence-free quantum computing. If this works, Microsoft can pave the way to building a scaled, full-stack, fault-tolerant (error-free) quantum computer. They can dominate the entire industry-leading to solve humanity's most pressing problems. We may be 2 to 5 years away, but for certain, we are no longer 20 years off.
Download the PDF here for free
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