
Long-sought particle that could revolutionize quantum computing - Anon84
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2012/Q3/signature-of-long-sought-particle-that-could-revolutionize-quantum-computing-seen-by-purdue-physicist.html
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pjin
I'm not a condensed matter researcher, but from what I know these particular
majorana fermions are quasiparticles, so it's a little misleading to directly
compare this to the Higgs boson which is an elementary particle. Still, this
is cool because it means topological quantum computing might be possible:

<http://stationq.cnsi.ucsb.edu/~freedman/Publications/96.pdf>

<http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/dl.aspx?id=154238>

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fjorder
For a classical analogy, compare an asynchronous analogue circuit designed to
evaluate a specific equation to a clocked digital circuit that evaluates that
same equation. The analogue circuit will orders of magnitude simpler, but it
will be extremely difficult to incorporate it into a much larger circuit
because fluctuations in heat, etc. will change when output is produced as well
as potentially changing the result. Clocked digital gates allow for more
deterministic output to arrive at a known time, thus allowing far greater
complexity.

Currently, quantum computing is just barely at the simple analogue circuit
level (e.g. D-Wave). Fault tolerance is crucial for scaling up quantum
computing devices towards more complex algorithms and, eventually, being able
to execute stored programs. Fault tolerant protocols typically operate by
redundantly encoding a single qubit's worth of data in several physical
qubits. How many physical qubits are required depends greatly on the
reliability of the physical qubits used. Thus, the complexity of a quantum
computer is massively dependent on finding reliable physical qubits, like
majorana fermions could prove to be!

