New Evidence Shows Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement

A team of four researchers has proved that entanglement doesn’t just weaken as temperature increases.

Rather, in mathematical models of quantum systems, there’s always a specific temperature above which it vanishes completely.

The researchers made their discovery while exploring the theoretical capabilities of future quantum computers.

They stumbled on the proof accidentally while developing a new algorithm.

Four computer scientists developed a new algorithm to prove that quantum algorithms exist at high temperatures.

But a rival team came out with a similar proof that a promising algorithm would work well at such temperatures.

The new algorithm's output is too unwieldy on a classical machine, but very little of it is actually quantum.

Two recent papers identified examples of low-temperature spin systems in which quantum algorithms for measuring equilibrium states outperform classical ones.

It remains to be seen how widespread this behavior is, though it remains to see how widespread it is.

“We can be optimistic that there are crazy new algorithms to be discovered,” Moitra said.