Researchers take a step toward novel quantum simulators

A grayscale image showing the outlines of a complex electrical device. A scanning electron microscope image of the "two-island" device, which researchers hope will pave the way toward a quantum simulator.

The new device, known as a quantum simulator, for now, only simulates the interactions between two quantum objects. The researchers argue in a paper published January 30 in Nature Physics that it could be scaled up relatively easily. If so, researchers could use it to simulate more complicated systems and begin answering some of the most tantalizing questions in physics.