Mapping the optimal route between two quantum states: when a straight line is not the shortest distance

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As a quantum state collapses from a quantum superposition to a classical state or a different superposition, it will follow a path known as a quantum trajectory. For each start and end state there is an optimal or “most likely” path, but it is not as easy to predict the path or track it experimentally as a straight-line between two points would be in our everyday, classical world. In a new paper featured on the July 30 cover of Nature, scientists from the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University, the University of Rochester, University of California at Berkeley, and Washington University in St. Louis have shown that it is possible to track these quantum trajectories and compare them to a recently developed theory for predicting the most likely path a system will take between two states. Andrew N. Jordan, professor of physics at the University of Rochester and member of Chapman’s Institute for Quantum Studies, is one of the authors of the paper. His group had developed this new theory in an earlier paper. The results published this week show good agreement between theory and experiment. For their experiment, the Berkeley and Washington University teams devised a superconducting qubit with exceptional coherence

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