A rudimentary quantum computer has rediscovered the Higgs boson. Sort of.
Physicists have been working hard to develop machines that can use quantum mechanical tricks to speed up computation. But they also hope that such quantum computers can return the favour and help them to discover new laws of nature.
Now, a team has shown that a quantum circuit can learn to sift through reams of data from atom-smashing experiments in search of a new particle. Their proof-of-principle study — performed using a machine built by quantum-computing company D-Wave working on the now-familiar case of the Higgs boson — does not yet provide a clear advantage over conventional techniques. But the authors say that quantum machine learning could make a difference in future experiments, when the amounts data will grow even larger. Their research was published on October 18 in Nature1.
To read more, click here.