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It seems that quantum computers can be classified by the type of quantum they operate on. Not entirely sure what category most common current systems fall into (eg. D-Wave, Google, IBM, Microsoft). Photonic computing seems to be one of the more 'popular' alternative methods. Curious about other forms of unconventional quantum computing.

Quasi interested in a few different cases:

  • Phonon - sound based

  • Roton - vortex based

  • Dropleton - quantum droplet*

  • Fracton - fractal analog of phonons*

  • Plasmon - plasma based

Also curious about chronons & virtual particles.

Have significant breakthroughs in quantum computing been made using non-standard quanta?

glS
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user820789
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  • What makes a "quantum" "non-standard"? – Norbert Schuch Jul 11 '18 at 17:02
  • @NorbertSchuch "non-standard quantum" would be anything that isn't "standard quantum" (as stated in my question, I'm not sure what the "standard quantum" is) – user820789 Jul 13 '18 at 05:26
  • @meowzz Aha, so "non-standard" is what isn't "standard". That's not exactly a very enlightning definition. In particular, once a significant breakthrough is made with a non-standard approach, doesn't this mean we have to consider it standard? – Norbert Schuch Jul 13 '18 at 20:48
  • @NorbertSchuch Again, I'm not sure what the current standard is. Regarding standards in the future, this question may very well have significantly different answers. – user820789 Jul 13 '18 at 20:53
  • But is "standard" sth. which has already been done in the lab? Or where people are currently trying to set up an experiment? Or just sth. where people have made a theoretical proposal talking about how this could potentially be realized in the lab? These are vastly different possibilities! – Norbert Schuch Jul 13 '18 at 20:54
  • This also qualifies somewhat as non-mainstream, fwiw. – auden Jul 16 '18 at 18:42
  • @heather updated – user820789 Jul 19 '18 at 01:44
  • @meowzz if I'm not wrong, you just completely changed the question, and it is still really broad. Generally it's recommended you don't significantly change a question as to not invalidate existing answers. – auden Jul 19 '18 at 01:46
  • As per @Heather's comment above, invalidating existing answers isn't a great idea. In this case, I suggest you read this answer, then, if you've got a more specific question, feel free to ask that – Mithrandir24601 Jul 19 '18 at 12:55

2 Answers2

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The only two quasi-particle quanta for which I know there to be active research in quantum computing are phonons and anyons.

Sanchayan Dutta
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user1271772 No more free time
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I'm not sure if you count adiabatic quantum computing as fringe, but there was a paper using 4 NMR qubits to implement a adiabatic analogue to HHL which allowed them to invert an 8x8 operator with 98.4% fidelity which got put on arXiv a couple weeks ago. I thought that was pretty neat.

Dripto Debroy
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  • I had considered adiabatic & topological as well but did not include them (primarily because I do not the quantum they operate upon). – user820789 Jul 10 '18 at 17:38
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    Adiabatic is a model of quantum computation. Any quantum that standard quantum computing uses, adiabatic can use too. Topological uses anyons. – user1271772 No more free time Jul 11 '18 at 07:21
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    NMR has been the very first scheme to experimentally realize quantum computing. – Norbert Schuch Jul 13 '18 at 20:55
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    @NorbertSchuch True. My answer was referring to the pre-edit version of the question that used the phrasing of "Fringe" instead of non-standard quanta. The qubits are certainly somewhat common (albeit less worked on than other models from what I can see) but the methods were what I found interesting! – Dripto Debroy Jul 14 '18 at 01:45
  • Question has been updated if you would like to update your answer. – user820789 Jul 19 '18 at 01:21