[Life Notes] SG is semi-closed again, I become the experiment master~6/28

Jul 1, 2021

Two months of life, I always feel that the days are dull, especially in the semi-closed city after the middle of May, when I can't meet, and I can only spend half a day, especially I feel that time passes slowly, but now after connecting the dots, many things seem to be in a previous life. The contrast between the rapid progress and the series of events that seems to be separated and uncompressed is really shocking to me. I can only use the old saying "people always overestimate short-term changes and underestimate long-term changes". Keeping records of life is the core driving force of my blog, keeping life events and thoughts from being lost, and telling my relatives and friends that I am all right.

I follow the usual practice before the article starts: sincerely thank you for reading, responding, sharing, applauding :)

Experimental and Academic Records

During this time, I have thoroughly inspected and optimized the entire optical table: for example, our experiment requires two reverse Sisyphus cooling lasers, and one of them is always unstable in power, but the past habit is to increase the finishing power. To solve the problem (by cleaning the laser body), I carefully researched that more laser power can be allocated to Sisyphus on this optical path, because the laser power required for Doppler cooling and measurement from a common source is actually saturated, and this kind of engineering The details are that if the person in charge of the experiment doesn't mind, no one will find LOL. Another experimental detail worth recording is the 399bar laser light path. As far as I know, "after setting it ten years ago" everyone uses fine-tuning. People use the method of starting from nothing (first principle) to find the light path. I spent two or three days during a system maintenance to finally determine its clever door (trust me, this is the laser body that is deducted from the optical table. I have touched the hardest part), I really put down the big stone in my heart, and I have a sense of accomplishment (laughs. Now the laboratory has not only returned to its peak state in November last year, it can be said that the efforts of the past six months have made the phonon coherence time rise. , and double the speed of the quantum logic gate!!

Of course, there are still some inexplicable but not fatal situations: Although the RF measurement system installed in April is more stable than the original design, it is very disturbing that the output voltage changes every week or two (you can It is determined that the output of the system will produce an offset of <0.02v), this situation is likely to be caused by the integrated circuit, but at present, other issues are prioritized. After all, this jump is not continuously offset in one direction, But jumping back and forth... (I don't know if there is a charge and discharge phenomenon or something).

In addition to the various corrections of the hardware, being the experiment master means that the next research topic must be planned: in the short term, we will make the experiment control automation the highest goal, and it will take a few weeks to get all the human resources to cooperate. The prototype has been made. After all, the boss's grant is applied in this direction. In a few years, the remote operation of the cloud quantum computer will start with a single step (the process of writing automated scripts will also simplify all unnecessary experimental details, saving time. is to save lives)! On the other hand, long-term experimental planning requires theoretical support, one of the options is that the laboratory found an excellent article in DAMOP (and arxiv ), the British theoretical physicist used magical mathematical tricks to generate the quantum I am very familiar with. Logic Gate is definitely my favorite article in the first half of the year. At first glance, it seems that the parameters of our laboratory are able to achieve this kind of gemotry phase beam splitter gate, but if you really want to do the experiment seriously, you have to consider various correction items and details, so compared with automation, it will be temporarily put on hold; of course We can also continue down the road of quantum machine learning (QML) directly. This can be directly achieved by my graduation in two years. It is not a problem, but the golden period of publishing QML has basically passed, and the whole sub-field May start to go downhill (see below), this direction is more suitable for LOL to the extent that you can graduate smoothly and the thesis is easy to write

Personal productivity tools including journals (and the entire lab's logging platform) have become Notion: As someone who has written a paper journal and used Evernote for over 5 years, I've always been unhappy about switching to common software and recording methods, if it weren't for the fact that The laboratory recording platform has to be switched from the slow Google Doc. I should not try Notion (the two optical desks in the laboratory used Google Doc and One Note respectively). As a result, my evaluation is the same as that of many Notion enthusiasts. I feel that Evernote is really just a usable level, and now all kinds of lags and places that are not so smooth have been improved in Notion! Now not only the entire laboratory is using Notion for project management and recording, but everyone's own note-taking software has also been switched to Notion (laughs).

Paper Progress and Quantum Information Thinking

At present, it seems that " Experimental SWAP test of infinite dimensional quantum states " should reach PRL without any accident, although referee did not ask any spicy questions (our laboratory is actually surprised, because it can be seen that whether it is positive or negative) The referee is not an expert who really understands the content of the paper), for the sake of prudence, our laboratory still collected more materials for quantum state preparation and ran more simulations and error analysis; even rented the GCP running program, Really amazing experience. However, the final result is not surprising, the error mainly comes from the quantum state preparation (the laser power error of 0.3-0.4% in the figure below has little effect)

I have no emotion in the previous typical physics article, but I am the co-first author of " Quantum-enhanced bosonic learning machine " that makes me feel more, even if it was only two years ago in 2019, quantum machine learning (QML) ) fields are still in the middle of the day, and IBM's ability to publish in nature is one of the milestones. The result is unknown because there are too many high-quality articles, or simply aesthetic fatigue, or the potential of this field has been seen through the hands and feet (for example, quantum machine learning has been proved to be only multi-dimensional acceleration after HHL, but not exponential acceleration.) This year, the journals published by the QML experimental group have become more and more difficult... This is also a self-consolation, after all, from Nature to Nature Physics and then Nature communication finally arrived at NJP, I feel really sad, I hope this year It was successfully published.

Some people may think that quantum simulation will have more opportunities to be practical first than quantum computing, and the entire quantum information still has the opportunity to create Quantum Advantage (quantum advantage: refers to solving practical problems, not artificial milestones) within five years, but recently After seeing some progress in quantum chemistry, I am not optimistic. The most frequently discussed mid-range simulation goal in the field of quantum chemistry is to surpass the "Haber process to produce ammonia", because fertilizer production is an extremely energy-intensive activity for human beings. Understanding nitrogenase The process of FeMo-co chemistry helps to find better artificial catalysts (without operating at high temperatures). Then this article directly shows that it is an extremely difficult challenge to obtain sufficient accuracy and accuracy in the NISQ-VQE era (FeMo-Co has to test the relativistic effect because of its heavy elements, which is really hard enough). For this simulation, it is possible to I think the chance to make it in 5 years is close to cool. If there is really no experimental milestone of quantum advantage achieved before 2025, I estimate that quantum winter is coming, and the ten-year growth period from 2016 to 2025 may be the limit of patience of large VC enterprises (of course, the military-industrial and national security system has longer patience, But the pie is not big enough)...Of course I still think Honeywell and IonQ have a chance to challenge a quantum computer with 1000 qubits, but the worry about the bubble is getting bigger and bigger as my PhD progresses LOL

life story

During the month when Singapore returned to Phase 2, what I miss the most is going to restaurants (I remember the last meal before the lockdown was the delicious curry pictured below) and going to school to exercise. Living habits are broken. The psychological burden is indeed not small, but this is also an opportunity to understand and improve my living habits. From Phase 2 to the 20/4 eating method, it is indeed helpful for my physical and mental health. Reducing insulin shocks indeed makes it easier to maintain my spirit. Being in a sharp state and reducing meal time at the same time is to be able to devote more attention to various things that I think are more meaningful :) It is also a habit to explore concentric circles along the community where you live every day. It is also a plan that should always be implemented but is always incomplete. The opportunity of Phase2 also allowed me to open more maps. Of course, we can't use other channels to consume social energy after dinner. I am very grateful to those old classmates and friends who chat with me through Telegram/Discord/Messenger. Although everyone is scattered all over the place, it is really convenient to communicate these days. too :)

Of course, film and television works and reading are indispensable during the half-closed time. Unfortunately, I think that the film and television works I have picked are not very good... (Uploading a new student will make me look forward to the second part, but it should also be because of the comparison of "History" "Lime Season 2" and "Love Robot Season 2" are not very impressive); when it comes to reading, e-books are really convenient these days, and I have a good location in Singapore to mail blogs directly from Taiwan. Very good. What impressed me most in reading the book was "Fukuo's Autobiography". Although I have already known this "Fukuzawa Yukichi" who is always on the Japanese 10,000-dollar bill in the history of modern Japanese characters, it is very important to actually read his autobiography. Interesting, the life and personality traits of a generation of Enlightenment thinkers can be interestingly described as quite special. During this period of time, I was also pushed into the pit by the senior of the Science Fiction Club. The comics that are worth pondering ruined Frillian. The time view is indeed the most fundamental existence that affects the world view.

During this period of time, there is no story to tell in the currency circle. After the dive on 5/19, the trend is unclear. Although I subjectively believe in EIP1559 and Solana summer, the market is human behavior and is the result of collective game decision-making, so if it is true The bear market begins, and then comes the cooling-off period for users to seriously promote and develop the main name construction. LOL In the past, I was invited to the Beijing University of Science and Technology Blockchain Society to share the big and small things about Dex, and also talk about ancient times. In the legend of Sushiswap last summer, originally thought that the dex war was a double dragon grabbing the pearl, but now it has risen to three hegemony (sushiswap/uniswap/curve).