Quantum computers are gaining a reputation among chemists and material scientists as promising tools that can tackle problems that are too complex for ordinary computers and out of reach experimentally. In a study that takes a key step toward that promise, researchers used a quantum computer to simulate an experiment and report that it accurately predicted real data (PDF). The study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, was a collaborative effort among two national laboratories, multiple universities, and IBM Quantum.“For the first time, we can directly compare the results from a quantum computer to a complex experiment,” says Alessandro Curioni, vice president of IBM Europe and Africa and director of IBM’s research laboratory in Zurich. The researchers tested the quantum simulation against reality using data recorded in a neutron-scattering experiment conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In this type of experiment, scientists fire neutrons at a material and track how they scatter. The data reveal the arrangement and motions of atoms and electrons in the target material, information that scientists use to understand the material’s properties, such as its conductivity, catalytic activity, and energy storage.The researchers focused on crystalline KCuF3, a well-studied magnetic material. They simulated neutron scattering via quantum calculations and compared the results with data measured at Oak Ridge. “And it works.” Curioni says. “You can see that the difference is negligible.”“As a quantum computing accomplishment, this seems like a very nice advance,” says Steven White, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not
Ananya Palivela (Mon,) studied this question.