Majorana Zero Mode

• Microsoft has recently announced to have found Majorana zero modes to revolutionise Quantum computing.

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

• All subatomic particles that make up matter are called fermions.
• In 1928, the British physicist Paul Dirac derived the Dirac equation, which predicted the existence of an antiparticle for each particle, such that if the two meet, they annihilate each other.
• The first antiparticle found was the positron (or the anti-electron).
• Later Physicist Ettore Majorana predicted particles that satisfied certain conditions to be their own antiparticles.
• In his honour, fermions that are their own antiparticles are called Majorana fermions.
• One subatomic particle that physicists think could be Majorana fermions are neutrinos.
• Pair, or bound states, of fermions that are their own antiparticles are called Majorana zero modes.
• Majorana zero modes could help build quantum computers that are much less fragile than they are today, making them computationally superior.

ABOUT QUANTUM COMPUTING

• Quantum computing is a multidisciplinary field that utilizes quantum mechanics to solve complex problems faster than on classical computers.
• It uses two key principles of quantum physics: superposition and entanglement.
  • Superposition means that each quantum bits or qubit can represent both 1 and 0 at the same time.
  • Entanglement means that qubits in a superposition can be correlated with each other; i.e., state of one (whether it is a 1 or a 0) can depend on state of another.