This month, Insights & Outcomes will turn your head with spinning electrons, prolific plankton, and the biology of sex.
As always, you can find more science and medicine research news on YaleNews’ Science & Technology and Health & Medicine pages.
Yale’s single quantum spin story
A research result by Yale physicists lends credibility to an exotic proposal for safeguarding quantum information called topological quantum protection. Topological quantum protection is an alternative to Yale’s primary approach to fault tolerant quantum computing based on active error correction. Rather, it involves a theoretically proposed entity called a Majorana quasiparticle, which has not yet been directly observed. A team led by Michel Devoret, the F.W. Beinecke Professor of Applied Physics and Physics, has applied the tools of circuit quantum electrodynamics to achieve the continuous monitoring of a quasiparticle’s spin, a promising step toward detection of Majorana quasiparticles. The Yale team includes Max Hays, Valla Fatemi, Kyle Serniak, and Spencer Diamond. The study appears in Nature Physics.