If gamblers, investors and quantum experimentalists could bend the arrow of time, their advantage would be significantly higher, leading to significantly better outcomes. Working with collaborators at the University of Cambridge, Nicole Yunger Halpern(link is external), a Fellow in the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), has shown that by manipulating entanglement, researchers can simulate what could happen if one could travel backwards in time.

Scientists know that entanglement, a special connection that intertwines the fate of quantum particles, is a crucial ingredient for quantum computers. Without it, a quantum computer loses its ability to harness the fullness of quantum complexity—that special sauce that makes the quantum world impossible to emulate on ordinary computers. But whether entanglement is the only key, and exactly how much of it is needed, no one really knows. 

The University of Maryland and IonQ, a leading developer of quantum computing devices, are teaming up to provide $300,000 in funding for projects designed to advance discoveries in quantum science and aid in developing a skilled quantum computing workforce for the future.

There is nothing permanent except change. This is perhaps never truer than in the fickle and fluctuating world of quantum mechanics. The quantum world is in constant flux. The properties of quantum particles flit between discrete, quantized states without any possibility of ever being found in an intermediate state. How quantum states change defies normal intuition and remains the topic of active debate—for both scientists and philosophers.

Quantum computers are heralded as promising tools for performing computations that are beyond the reach of supercomputers and every other technology currently at our disposal. But we are in the early days of quantum computing, and there are still basic questions left to answer: How do you know that a clever programmer won’t develop a revolutionary method that allows traditional computers to run circles around the upstart quantum newcomers? And if a quantum computer has solved a problem that no other available technology can, how can you be sure that it’s even right?

The University of Maryland’s world-renowned quantum enterprise was front and center throughout today on a series of segments on CNBC. Correspondents with the cable financial news network spoke to some of UMD’s hundreds of quantum scientists and engineers, interviewed President Darryll J. Pines, toured labs and the Discovery District and delved into a new business environment where a leading quantum computing company based on UMD breakthroughs—IonQ—is making waves. Original article by Maryland Today Staff

Leaders from the University of Maryland, the state of Maryland and other partners gathered yesterday in Annapolis to launch an alliance designed to push innovations from quantum science and engineering into the mainstream and further enhance the region’s primacy in a field that promises to revolutionize society. Led by UMD and including other local universities, industry partners and government labs, the Maryland Quantum Alliance will develop pioneering quantum technologies—including powerful computers, sensors and networks—and train the quantum workforce of tomorrow.

Cigar shaped clouds of atoms (pink) are levitated in a chamber where an experiment uses light to recreate beh

A semiconductor chip ion trap, fabricated by Sandia National Laboratories and used in research at the University of Maryland, composed of gold-plated electrodes that suspend individual atomic ion qubits above the surface of the bow-tie shaped chip. (Credit: Chris Monroe/JQI and Duke University)

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Commanding Officer, Capt. Ricardo Vigil (top left), and NRL Director of Research, Bruce Danly, Ph.D. (bottom left), and Gerald M. Borsuk, Ph.D., (bottom right) associate director of research for NRL’s systems directorate joined University of Maryland’s Ronald Walsworth, Ph.D, director, Quantum Technology Center for a virtual signing ceremony Sept. 1.