Chaos simulated thanks to a quantum computer invented by a start-up founded by a young physicist from Parma: Matteo Rossi

Successfully simulated chaos with a quantum computer: a system of atoms that move in ways so complex that it is a problem almost impossible for even the most powerful traditional supercomputers to solve. The result opens the way to many applications and is online on ArXiv, the platform that hosts scientific articles not yet peer-reviewed. It was obtained with an IBM quantum computer with 127 qubits and it was obtained by an international research group coordinated by Sergey Filippov, of the Finnish startup Algorithmiq co-founded by two Italians, with the collaboration of the University of Milan.
Predicting the behavior of many atoms interacting with each other, including their quantum characteristics, is too complex a challenge for traditional computers, but it is instead one of the areas in which quantum computers can provide an incredible acceleration, at least on paper. Being able to carry out this type of simulations would allow applications that can range from weather forecasts with unprecedented accuracy, to the study of turbulence in fluids and even superconducting materials.

To move from theory to practice there are still some technical difficulties, in particular it is necessary to limit the sources of error, i.e. disturbances to the purity of the qubits, the quantum version of the bits. The new work led by Algorithmiq, a startup whose four founders include the Italians Sabrina Maniscalco and Matteo Rossi parmesan, has now made it possible to solve one of these problems. Matteo Rossi, 34 years old, graduated from Ulivi in ​​2009 and then graduated from the Faculty of Physics of the University of Parma in 2014.

Thanks to the new software developed by Algorithmiq researchers, based on the so-called tensor networks, the researchers were able to simulate an example of quantum chaos by performing as many as 6,000 quantum operations, almost completely eliminating errors. Precisely in a transition phase like the current one, in which the first sufficiently powerful quantum computers begin to exist, software (i.e. programming languages) could prove to be the fulcrum to allow these new machines to make a decisive leap. In this scenario, the goal just achieved could represent a turning point capable of concretely opening the doors to the use of quantum computers in a class of problems with potentially large applications. (HANDLE).