Super-Cool Quantum Research Lab Heads to Space

October 26, 2016

PULLMAN, Wash., Oct. 26 — Washington State University and NASA scientists are set to begin an investigation into the strange world of quantum physics on the International Space Station.

WSU physicists Peter Engels and Maren Mossman are part of a team studying the behavior of atoms laser-cooled to temperatures just a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero, the point where they behave like one wave of discrete particles.

On Earth, the unavoidable presence of gravity makes it difficult to conduct unperturbed observations of this this super-cooled substance – called a Bose-Einstein condensate – and the laws of quantum physics that govern its wave-like behavior.

To overcome these Earthly limitations, NASA will launch a remotely operated laser-cooling device, called the Cold Atom Laboratory (http://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/), to the International Space Station next summer.

Engels, a professor of physics, and Mossman, a graduate student researcher, will use the laboratory and the space station’s microgravity environment to create and study Bose-Einstein condensates for up to 10 seconds at a time, unlocking the potential to observe new quantum phenomena never before seen on Earth.

Their research will be the start of a new chapter in the study of quantum physics that could eventually help in the development of ultrapowerful quantum computers and a wide variety of advanced sensors for taking measurements of quantities such as gravity, rotations and magnetic fields.

“Cold atom research on the International Space Station will give us a fundamental understanding for a part of physics that is so complicated that, even with the most powerful computers on Earth, we cannot find answers,” Engels said. “Our work will, in turn, provide new insights into systems that may be important in the design of future materials and electronics like ultraprecise gravitational sensors to detect caves underground or hidden oil fields. The options are really quite limitless and exciting.”

Countdown to launch

For the last three years, Engels and Mossman have worked closely with colleagues at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California on the design of a laser cooling device that is not only small and durable enough to survive the tumultuous ride from Earth to the Space Station aboard a SpaceX rocket but also capable of operating remotely without maintenance. In comparison, in modern, Earth-based physics labs like Engels, laser cooling apparatus take up entire rooms and slight deviations of lasers or magnets can compromise an experiment.

The two WSU scientists are part of one of five research groups that have been running preliminary tests and computer simulations on a ground-based version of the Cold Atom Laboratory in preparation for next year’s launch.

“We are accustomed to being able to pull something out and fixing it if it breaks, which, of course, won’t be possible in space. Everything will be remotely controlled,” Mossman said. “The astronauts onboard the space station don’t have the expertise to run these kinds of experiments so we are very fortunate JPL is so good at engineering things. It is really the first time that an atomic physics experiment of this caliber is going to be installed on the space station.”

On the space station, the cold atom laboratory will use a complex array of lasers, magnetic traps, and vacuum chambers to cool clouds of rubidium and potassium atoms to temperatures colder than any naturally occurring place in the universe several hundred times a day.

The data will then be beamed down to Earth where Engels, Mossman, and their collaborators will interpret it.

Strange world of quantum physics

Normally, atoms can be imagined like billiards balls bouncing around a pool table. However, when they are super-cooled to form a Bose-Einstein condensate or when only two or three of them are isolated together, atoms and subatomic particles, like electrons, stop behaving like individual balls and start behaving like an ocean wave. This synchronized and wave-like behavior is the basis of what is known as quantum physics.

As computer chips and electronics get into regimes where the circuitry is so small it can’t be viewed with a conventional microscope, the effects of quantum physics have to be taken into account. The problem scientists will run into when trying to engineer such devices is they currently have only limited or indirect tools to study the behavior of matter at such a small scale.

“Even with our most powerful optical imaging technology, we cannot observe how two or three atoms interact,” Mossman said. “So instead, what we will be doing with the Cold Atom Laboratory is studying a much larger group of super-cooled atoms that behave in the same way and can be observed on the space station with an optical microscope. We can then transfer what we learn about this quantum mechanical weirdness to determining how a small number of atoms interact.”


Source: Washington State University

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire