Groundbreaking research has uncovered a surprisingly simple relationship between the rates of energy and information transmission across the interface between different quantum field theories. This discovery sheds new light on this fundamental yet elusive problem, with far-reaching implications for particle physics and condensed matter physics.
The Quantum Equation Revealed
An international team of astrophysicists, led by Hirosi Ooguri and Fred Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo (Kavli IPMU), has made a breakthrough in their theoretical interpretations.
In a simple setting linking two quantum field theories, they discovered an unexpectedly intimate connection between how fast energy can be relayed and how fast information about that energy spreads. One of the most basic ideas in just fields such as mass physics and condensed issue physics, however for a long time, it has been tough to compute the transport rates of energy and information over these boundaries.
The scientists demonstrate that in two-dimensional scale-invariant holographic theories, there exist simple and universal inequalities connecting the three very important classes of quantities : energy transfer rate; information transfer rate and the size of Hilbert space (measured by how fast the number of states grow at high energy). Concretely, they proved the energy transmittance is less or equal to the information transmittance which is, in turn, less or equal to the size of Hilbert space.
A TUTORIAL OF THE QUANTUM EQUATION
This finding has far-reaching consequences for the study of quantum systes. The inequalities they uncovered are due to the fact that energy and information occupying some number of states must be transmitted together in order for the system to work correctly. That is to say, in the quantum dynamics are energy and information inseparable.
Until now, the transport of both energy and information would be studied separately since no connection between the two was known. Making this connection could, in principle, solve this age-old mystery — and the researchers have thereby broken new ground on a problem that was at an impasse.
The team also demonstrated that a more stringent inequality is not possible, suggesting that their results reflect a fundamental constraint on energy-information transfer in quantum systems. Besides being theoretically important, this finding can also contribute to the development and optimization of quantum technologies like quantum computing and communication systems.
Conclusion
This international team of scientists paired up to conduct the pioneering research that has revealed a particularly simple but far-reaching expression of how energy and information should flow in a quantum field theory. In potential use this finding has currently strong implications for the development of new powerful quantum technologies, hence the interplay between these tools and our original tackling of fundamental understanding in the quantum world. While we still have plenty of questions to answer when it comes to the secrets of the quantum world, this work is proof of just how far interdisciplinary research and collaboration can go.
