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Companion on a string

09.02.2000

As every schoolchild knows, when a conductor moves in a magnetic field, a voltage difference arises at the ends of the conductor, and if the conductor is closed, a current will occur.

Thus, if a piece of wire is lowered from a satellite flying in the Earth's magnetic field, a current will appear in it, and the satellite will slow down and fall lower. That is, in order to leave the orbit, it is not necessary to turn on the brake engines and waste fuel - it is enough to unwind the coil with the wire. The reverse process is also possible: by passing current, for example, from solar panels, through a conductive "tail", it is possible to push the satellite up. Moreover, both methods have a higher efficiency than a jet engine.

The fuel stored on the satellite for deorbiting (this process is usually provided after the end of its service life, so as not to litter the near space with "dead" devices), can be up to 20 percent of the mass of the satellite. The mass of the braking wire will be only two percent, due to which it is possible to increase the payload.

Next year, the American agency NASA intends to conduct an experiment: to lower a 15-kilometer-long wire from a satellite and try to control the orbit with its help.

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Compact optical quantum switch 30.10.2020

Quantum computers based on lasers with qubits in the form of trapped ions are interesting, but very cumbersome. The laser beam travels many meters across a whole system of mirrors, lenses and other equipment before hitting a pair of entangled ions. Scaling such systems up to hundreds and thousands of qubits is another concern. Especially when you consider that the traps (qubits) are cooled almost to absolute zero. But there is a solution to the problem, and it has been tested.

A few years ago, a group of researchers from MIT proposed directing a laser beam at qubits not through air (as in the example in the photo below), but through waveguides inside a chip with an ion trap. This proposal was recently implemented by a group of scientists from the ETH Zurich (ETH Zurich). Researchers have designed, built and tested what is essentially an optical quantum switch that could pave the way for scalable general purpose quantum computers.

A silicon chip with 100 nm thick waveguides was fabricated using a classical process technology. In the picture you can see a schematic representation of the chip in the place where the laser beam breaks free - exits the tip of the waveguide inside the chip and hits a pair of entangled ions. Ions, in turn, are captured by two electrodes - each with its own, and together they are in an entangled state in such a system.

In the proposed solution, the waveguides can be separated to control many very densely packed traps. This simplifies the optical system and protects it from interference and errors. In production, such traps will be very cheap, but the main thing is that such solutions will help to significantly and cost-free increase the number of qubits in optical quantum computers.

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