A real-time, scalable, fast and resource-efficient decoder for a quantum computer
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Light-matter coupling via quantum pathways for spontaneous symmetry breaking in van der Waals antiferromagnetic semiconductors
Light-matter interaction simultaneously alters both the original material and incident light. Light not only reveals material details but also activates coupling mechanisms. The coupling has been demonstrated mechanically, for instance, through the patterning of metallic antennas, resulting in the emergence of plasmonic quasiparticles and enabling wavefront engineering of light via the generalized Snell’s law. However, quantum-mechanical light-matter interaction, wherein photons coherently excite distinct quantum pathways, remains poorly understood. Here, we report on quantum interference between light-induced quantum pathways through the orbital quantum levels and spin continuum. The quantum interference immediately breaks the symmetry of the hexagonal antiferromagnetic semiconductor FePS3. Below the Néel temperature, we observe the emergence of birefringence and linear dichroism, namely, quantum anisotropy due to quantum interference, which is further enhanced by the thickness effect. We explain the direct relevance of the quantum anisotropy to a quantum phase transition by spontaneous symmetry breaking in Mexican hat potential. Our findings suggest material modulation via selective quantum pathways through quantum light-matter interaction.
Dynamic thermalization on noisy quantum hardware
Emulating thermal observables on a digital quantum computer is essential for quantum simulation of many-body physics. However, thermalization typically requires a large system size due to incorporating a thermal bath, whilst limited resources of near-term digital quantum processors allow for simulating relatively small systems. We show that thermal observables and fluctuations may be obtained for a small closed system without a thermal bath. Thermal observables occur upon classically averaging quantum mechanical observables over randomized variants of their time evolution that run independently on a digital quantum processor. Using an IBM quantum computer, we experimentally find thermal occupation probabilities with finite positive and negative temperatures defined by the initial state’s energy. Averaging over random evolutions facilitates error mitigation, with the noise contributing to the temperature in the simulated observables. This result fosters probing the dynamical emergence of equilibrium properties of matter at finite temperatures on noisy intermediate-scale quantum hardware.
Real-time observation of picosecond-timescale optical quantum entanglement towards ultrafast quantum information processing
Entanglement is a fundamental resource for various optical quantum information processing (QIP) applications. To achieve high-speed QIP systems, entanglement should be encoded in short wavepackets. Here we report the real-time observation of ultrafast optical Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen correlation at a picosecond timescale in a continuous-wave system. Optical phase-sensitive amplification using a 6-THz-bandwidth waveguide-based optical parametric amplifier enhances the effective efficiency of 70-GHz-bandwidth homodyne detectors, mainly used in 5G telecommunication, enabling its use in real-time quantum state measurement. Although power measurement using frequency scanning, such as an optical spectrum analyser, is not performed in real time, our observation is demonstrated through the real-time amplitude measurement and can be directly used in QIP applications. The observed Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen states show quantum correlation of 4.5 dB below the shot-noise level encoded in wavepackets with 40 ps period, equivalent to 25 GHz repetition—103 times faster than previous entanglement observation in continuous-wave systems. The quantum correlation of 4.5 dB is already sufficient for several QIP applications, and our system can be readily extended to large-scale entanglement. Moreover, our scheme has high compatibility with optical communication technology such as wavelength-division multiplexing, and femtosecond-timescale observation is also feasible. Our demonstration is a paradigm shift in accelerating accessible quantum correlation—the foundational resource of all quantum applications—from the nanosecond to picosecond timescales, enabling ultrafast optical QIP.
A unified acoustic-to-speech-to-language embedding space captures the neural basis of natural language processing in everyday conversations
This study introduces a unified computational framework connecting acoustic, speech and word-level linguistic structures to study the neural basis of everyday conversations in the human brain. We used electrocorticography to record neural signals across 100 h of speech production and comprehension as participants engaged in open-ended real-life conversations. We extracted low-level acoustic, mid-level speech and contextual word embeddings from a multimodal speech-to-text model (Whisper). We developed encoding models that linearly map these embeddings onto brain activity during speech production and comprehension. Remarkably, this model accurately predicts neural activity at each level of the language processing hierarchy across hours of new conversations not used in training the model. The internal processing hierarchy in the model is aligned with the cortical hierarchy for speech and language processing, where sensory and motor regions better align with the model’s speech embeddings, and higher-level language areas better align with the model’s language embeddings. The Whisper model captures the temporal sequence of language-to-speech encoding before word articulation (speech production) and speech-to-language encoding post articulation (speech comprehension). The embeddings learned by this model outperform symbolic models in capturing neural activity supporting natural speech and language. These findings support a paradigm shift towards unified computational models that capture the entire processing hierarchy for speech comprehension and production in real-world conversations.
Collective quantum enhancement in critical quantum sensing
Critical systems represent a valuable resource in quantum sensing and metrology. Critical quantum sensing (CQS) protocols can be realized using finite-component phase transitions, where criticality arises from the rescaling of system parameters rather than the thermodynamic limit. Here, we show that a collective quantum advantage can be achieved in a multipartite CQS protocol using a chain of parametrically coupled critical resonators in the weak-nonlinearity limit. We derive analytical solutions for the low-energy spectrum of this unconventional quantum many-body system, which is composed of locally critical elements. We then assess the scaling of the quantum Fisher information with respect to fundamental resources. We demonstrate that the coupled chain outperforms an equivalent ensemble of independent critical sensors, achieving quadratic scaling in the number of resonators. Finally, we show that even with finite Kerr nonlinearity or Markovian dissipation, the critical chain retains its advantage, making it relevant for implementing quantum sensors with current microwave superconducting technologies.
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