The ultimate energy source that powers the universe is within reach. Nuclear fusion—accomplished through inertial or magnetic confinement—is the ultra-clean, nearly limitless energy source that powers the Sun.
In December 2022, scientists successfully achieved ignition, meaning that their bottled, microscopic star put out more energy than it sucked in. But achieving ignition is just the first step, and fusion physicists and engineers need to discover and design a whole host of innovations to translate ignition into grid-reliable power.
To combat climate change and meet our growing electricity needs, humanity needs a fusion drive. But understanding the complex soup of free electrons that makes up the super-hot plasma necessary for fusion isn’t easy—and if you can’t simulate, you can’t innovate. If fusion scientists could leverage the untapped potential of quantum computers to run those simulations, however, then they might just be on to something.
A new paper published by scientists at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) hopes to do just that. Using what are called “Dyson maps,” the researchers hope to translate the language of classical physics into terms that a quantum computer—a machine designed to solve complex quandaries by leveraging the unique properties of quantum particles—can understand. The results of the study were published in Physical Review A.
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