Google’s quantum computer creates a wormhole

picture: A “real” cosmic wormhole is usually imagined as tunneling out of space-time, a shortcut that allows for faster-than-light travel, backwards or forwards in time. attributed to him: Credit: inqnet/a. Mueller (Caltech)

The complex field equations of Einstein’s theory of relativity not only produce black holes, places where gravity is so great that not even light can escape, but also wormholes. These are remote connections Regions of space-time that, if they were “open” and accessible to light or matter, could act as a shortcut. To travel from the Milky Way to another galaxy in the blink of an eye, for example. As well as time travel itself, to the past or future. But unlike black holes, which we can even take pictures of nowadays, wormholes only exist in theory at present.

Although this only applies to “real” cosmic wormholes. Because in the magazine nature This week, The Americans described how they created a quantum physical equivalent of a wormhole. An open wormhole through which they can send information. This is while wormholes in general relativity are usually closed. The researchers used the Sycamore device, the quantum computer (or its prototype) that internet giant Google has been working on for several years. The device, made up of 53 so-called quantum bits (‘qubits’), was still in the news in 2019 after it performed a specific calculation much faster than the fastest classic supercomputer.

And now the sycamore has created a wormhole. It is called holographic dualism, which means that the creation exhibits properties that can be explained as a combination of quantum and gravitational effects. Because this is what the holographic principle in theoretical physics says: quantum effects seen in cosmic phenomena such as black holes or neutron stars (where gravity is massive) can also be described by theories in which gravity is absent. These simplified theories are called “binary” and can help in the search for a unified model that reconciles quantum mechanics with general relativity – quantum gravity. Because double theories usually involve lower dimensions, they are called holograms – just like a hologram is a representation of a hologram in two dimensions.

Google researchers created a double 3D wormhole on a quantum computer, where gravity played no role. They then used that to instantly (faster-than-light) move or “teleport” the qubit’s state from one part of the computer to another. Or rather, from one set of qubits to another, because the experiment involved only nine of the 53 qubits in Sycamore. The fact that it has been shown that it is ever possible to send information through a holographic double wormhole, and that it can be opened, might mean that it could also be done with “real” wormholes, if they exist. It is possible that the so-called negative energy plays a role here, energy that generates a kind of anti-gravity that does not contract space-time, but pushes it apart.

The wormhole experiment conducted by Google researchers shows that a potential theory of quantum gravity can be explored, and thus better understood, by simulating aspects of it on a quantum computer. Here, too, it is a matter of having as many qubits as possible – in any case more than nine – calculated together without errors. Because the more qubits, the more accurate the holograms of wormholes and possibly other strange cosmic concepts that exist only in theory at the moment.