A research team at Mississippi State University (MUS) has secured over half a million dollars in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear physics program to support their investigation into the emerging field of quantum computing.
The research project, titled "Three-body Interactions on a Quantum Computer," has been granted $550,000 and is scheduled to run for three years. Gautam Rupak, a professor in MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the principal investigator of the project.
Quantum computing is a multidisciplinary field that integrates computer science, physics, and mathematics. It leverages the principles of quantum mechanics to solve complex problems more efficiently than classical computers. It can contribute to creating improved models for understanding how atoms and nuclei interact, leading to a more precise comprehension of molecular structure.
“Though quantum mechanics was developed nearly a century ago, the advent of quantum computers requires a change in paradigm in how we compute physical quantities on such devices,” said Rupak, noting the research team is collaborating with experts in nuclear physics, Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers, and machine learning.
He mentioned that the research team will focus on developing and testing algorithms using existing quantum computers. Their objective is to study three-body nuclear forces, which will have a direct influence on future investigations related to nuclear structure and reactions across a broad spectrum of atomic masses.
According to Rupak, the application of this technology could eventually lead to more precise predictions of real-time dynamics in complex atomic nuclei, potentially impacting areas such as drug and chemical research.
The research team's current objective is to address the challenge of determining the "binding energy of the triton." The triton is a positively charged particle composed of a proton and two neutrons, equivalent to the nucleus of a tritium atom. The team aims to achieve this using the current Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers.
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