Physics – Quantum simulation hits the open road

http://physics.aps.org/articles/v4/72

In Physical Review Letters, Martin Kliesch of the Free University of Berlin and the University of Potsdam, Germany, and his colleagues have shown rigorously that open quantum systems–those which interact with an environment–can also be efficiently simulated with quantum computers [1]. This opens up the potential impact of quantum computers to important applications in condensed-matter physics, quantum chemistry, and even biology.