at Queen Mary University of London have developed a way to use quantum computers as tools for exploring complex behaviour in matter, rather than simply asking them to perform faster calculations.
The work applies a technique called quantum computational spectroscopy to systems that can change over time or interact with their environment, situations that are particularly demanding for conventional computers to .
By reconstructing measures of quantum behaviour, the researchers were able to investigate unusual phenomena that are difficult to access with existing approaches. In the longer term, computational spectroscopy could help scientists hypothetical materials before manufacturing them and may have applications in chemistry, molecular engineering and drug design.
Quantum computing still comes with a cloud of hype around it. This work is more useful precisely because it is narrower: a specific method for making a difficult class of scientific questions a little more measurable.