General relativity describes the physical world at high energy or high matter density, such as astrophysical objects.
Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, describes matter at the atomic and subatomic levels.
Quantum gravity is a hypothetical physical theory that describes objects relevant to both types of situations, such as the interior of a black hole.
However, quantum mechanics and general relativity are fundamentally incompatible, so there is no consensus on the theory of quantum gravity.
The holographic principle is a way to connect different theories, or to help reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity, by using a restricted physical system to interpret relativity as an extension of quantum physics.
In a recent paper published in Nature, scientists reported for the first time a quantum “simulation” of a holographic wormhole using a quantum processor, Google’s Sycamore processor.
The researchers designed a simple system to simulate a holographic wormhole – where the properties of a properly designed quantum system match those of a gravitational system.
The quantum simulation utilizes a Suspended Suzuki (Sycamore) processor with a 9-qubit circuit.
The dynamics of the quantum bits as they travel through this processor are identical to those that would be expected if they were to travel through a traversable wormhole.
This experiment is the first demonstration of the potential feasibility of using quantum computers to test quantum gravity theory in the future.
