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III. Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

1. Quantum Organics in the 21st Century

Alon, Ofir and Axel Lode, eds. Quantum Many-Body Dynamics in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Entropy. May, 2020. This is an introduction to a special collection issue by University of Haifa and Albert-Ludwig University, Freiburg physicists across this intersect of these quantum and classical fields and endeavors, which presently joining up again in common understanding.

The Schrödinger equation is central to quantum mechanics and a cornerstone for the description of many fascinating phenomena in AMO, chemical, condensed-matter, and nuclear physics. Quantum many-body dynamics attract an enormous amount of interest in physics, chemistry, and mathematics alike. The purpose of this Special Issue is to amalgamate contributions from researchers actively working on solutions, applications, and theoretical methodologies for the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for few- and many-particle systems. (Proposal)

Arrighi, Pablo. An Overview of Quantum Cellular Automata. Natural Computing. September, 2019. An Aix-Marseille University researcher opens another window upon the nonlinear nature of this deep realm by the ready avail of these computational mathematics. See also A Review of Quantum Cellular Automata by a colleague Terry Farrelly at arXiv:1904.13318.

Quantum cellular automata consist in arrays of identical finite-dimensional quantum systems, evolving in discrete-time steps by iterating a unitary operator G. Moreover the global evolution G is required to be causal (it propagates information at a bounded speed) and translation-invariant (it acts everywhere the same). Quantum cellular automata provide a model/architecture for distributed quantum computation. We give an overview of their theory, with particular focus on structure results; computability and universality results; and quantum simulations. (Abstract)

Asano, Masanari, et al. Quantum Adaptivity in Biology: From Genetics to Cognition. Springer, 2015. At the frontiers of this vital unification of life and cosmos, an international team from Japan and Sweden including Andrei Khrennikov shows how current revisions of nature’s basic substance in terms of information processing can neatly meld with an organic systems science. A companion paper, Quantum Information Biology: From Information Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics to Applications in Molecular Biology and Cognitive Psychology, by this group is posted at arXiv:1503.02515.

The aim of this book is to introduce a theoretical/conceptual principle (based on quantum information theory and non-Kolmogorov probability theory) to understand information processing phenomena in biology as a whole—the information biology — a new research field, which is based on the application of open quantum systems (and, more generally, adaptive dynamics) outside of physics as a powerful tool. Thus this book is about information processing performed by biosystems. Since quantum information theory generalizes classical information theory and presents the most general mathematical formalism for the representation of information flows, we use this formalism. In short, this book is about quantum bioinformation. (Synopsis) However, it is not about quantum physical processes in bio-systems. We apply the mathematical formalism of quantum information as an operational formalism to bio-systems at all scales: from genomes, cells, and proteins to cognitive and even social systems. (xi)

Atmanspacher, Harald and Hans Primas, eds. Recasting Reality: Wolfgang Pauli’s Philosophical Ideas and Contemporary Science. Berlin: Springer, 2009. This collection is a new survey of the sage physicist’s thought as it ranges from Nobel Prize quantum phenomena to psychology with Carl Jung. Of especial notice may be the chapters Extending the Philosophical Significance of Complementarity, and Complementarity of Mind and Matter.

Baez, John and Jacob Biamonte. A Course on Quantum Techniques for Stochastic Mechanics. arXiv:1209.3632. UC Riverside, National University of Singapore, and Institute for Scientific Interchange ISI, Torino, mathematicians post a 235 page draft for a volume about nascent realizations that subatomic phenomena, long seen remote to macro states like us, actually has many innate affinities. This novel bridging can be facilitated by clearing up and aligning terms and definitions. Check the websites for each author, and a “Quantum Network” from California to Italy, Singapore, for more. As the second quote notes, again a prime aspect is to illume networks across nature and society, from which can be distilled, as much implied, an independent, universal source.

Some ideas from quantum theory are just beginning to percolate back to classical probability theory. For example, there is a widely used and successful theory of "chemical reaction networks," which describes the interactions of molecules in a stochastic rather than quantum way. Computer science and population biology use the same ideas under a different name: "stochastic Petri nets". But if we look at these theories from the perspective of quantum theory, they turn out to involve creation and annihilation operators, coherent states and other well-known ideas - but in a context where probabilities replace amplitudes. We explain this connection as part of a detailed analogy between quantum mechanics and stochastic mechanics. We also study the overlap of quantum mechanics and stochastic mechanics, which involves Hamiltonians that can generate either unitary or stochastic time evolution. (Abstract)

Mathematical Network Theory Network theory is a diverse subject which developed independently in several disciplines to rely on graphs with additional structure to model complex systems. We study the mathematical theory underlying the relations between these seemingly different systems. This unified mathematical language of networks has provided interoperability between—for example—ecological and chemical reaction networks, field theories, analog electrical circuits, tensor networks and quantum systems. This research has formed the basis for the recent push towards studying increasingly larger quantum mechanical systems, where the analysis is undergoing a shift towards embracing the concepts of complex networks. An ultimate goal is a mathematical theory and fully categorical description which pinpoints the similarities and differences between the use of networks throughout the sciences. This would give rise to a theory of networks augmenting the current statistical mechanics approach to complex network structure, evolution, and process with a theory based on quantum mechanics. (Quantum Network site)

Baggott, Jim. Beyond Measure: Modern Physics, Philosophy and the Meaning of Quantum Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. One of the best books on the subject which works through its historical formulation, a wide range of alternative theories such as David Bohm’s implicate order, Ilya Prigogine’s thermodynamic being and becoming, Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen school and the physical basis of consciousness. In a conclusion, Baggott makes a plea for an independently existing reality vs. the anti-realist camp.

Balatsky, Alexander, et al. Dynamic Quantum Matter. Annalen der Physik. 532/2, 2020. This editorial introduces a special issue on these later 2010s abilities to treat and avail this fundamental realm in a similar way to “classical” stages. The select papers are from a workshop held at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stockholm in December 2018. We cite as another instance of a 21st century revolution whereby, due to its worldwise occasion, is achieving, from this vista, an epic (re)unification of cosmic scales, with our humankinder self-discovery.

We are witnessing rapid developments in the field of quantum materials with the focus on some of the most profound concepts in condensed matter, including entangled orders, quantum coherence, and quantum topology. Therefore, non‐equilibrium quantum dynamics emerges as a design principle to create desired quantum materials and functionalities. We see a growing focus on dynamics as a way to understand and control the fundamental physical processes that emerge due to quantum coherence of entangled quantum matter. (1)

Ball, Philip. Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different. London: Bodley Head, 2018. The prolific British science writer and natural philosopher achieves an accessible, inclusive survey of this fundamental field from 20th century aspects to its latest frontiers. But the title is misleading, for it is not another book about how daunting it is. The work carefully covers decoherence, superposition, complementarity, entanglement, measurement, non-locality, many-worlds and more, which have led to an arcane, unintelligible sense. But the closing pages in turn proceed to offer, by our worldwide compass, a novel distillation and resolve. As other sections in Part III report, into the 21st century theorists came to realize that this deepest phase is distinguished by an information content and conveyance.

As a result, a synthesis of John Archibald Wheeler, Jeffrey Bub, Christopher Fuchs and others is accrues as a glimpse of a phenomenally vibrant cosmos which includes and is sensitive to human observations. A participatory universe to human evolutionary course thus becomes evident via an informational, programmic arc and passage of “Bit to It.” An allusion is that we peoples are now “It.” By way of quantum Bayesism views, our personal, aware interactions, as they seek iteratively better probabilities, in some way seems to affect, help choose, and may channel its course. But we note that the index still contains 108 male names, sans any women. The abstract inquiry that remains has not figured it out, or translated into an explanation, but a take home may be that we peoples indeed have a central place and purpose.

Quantum physics is regarded as one of the most obscure and impenetrable subjects in all of science. Over the past decade or so, the enigma of quantum mechanics has come into sharper focus. We now realize that it is less about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information: about what can be known and how. This is more disturbing than our bad habit of describing the quantum world as ‘things behaving weirdly’ suggests. It calls into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and knowledge itself. The quantum world isn’t a different world: it is our world, and if anything deserves to be called ‘weird’, it’s us. This exhilarating book is about what quantum maths really means – and what it doesn’t mean. (Publisher)

Increasingly, it looks more logical to frame quantum mechanics as a set of rules about information: what is and isn’t permissible when it comes to sharing, copying, transmitting and reading it. What distinguishes the quantum world of entanglement and non-locality from the everyday world where such things can’t be found is a kind of information-sharing between quantum systems that allows us to find out about one of them by looking at the other. (308) Again, all this fits with a growing conviction that quantum mechanics is at root a theory not of tiny particles and waves but of information and its causal influence. It’s a theory of how much we can deduce about the world by looking at it, and how that depends on intimate, invisible connections between here and there. (319)

This is what the quantum interpretation called QBism (see III.C.1) is really about , and it is why we would be wrong to regard it as some kind of solipsistic idea that ‘it’s all about us,’ or rhat ‘reality is an illusion.’ QBism is, rather, an expression of what (John A.) Wheeler called the ‘participatory universe,’ in which we play a role in the reality that we experience, without claiming that this is the whole story. (349)

Bell, John. Beables for Quantum Field Theory. Hiley, Basil and David Peat, eds. Quantum Implications. London: Routledge, 2004. A chapter reprint of the 1984 paper by the CERN physicist John Stewart Bell (1928-1990), wherein the term “beable” was first coined, which Lee Smolin (below) has deftly adopted. As the quote says, Bell’s intention was something more tentative than ‘being,’ namely ‘be–able.’ The paper is dedicated to David Bohm, whom Bell highly regarded, with this brief Abstract: “A de Broglie-Bohm version of quantum field theory is presented, with Fermi as well as Bose fields.”

In particular we will exclude the notion of ‘observable’ in favour of that of ‘beable.’ The beables of the theory are those elements which might correspond to elements of reality, to things which exist. Their existence does not depend on ‘observation.’ Indeed observation and observers must be made out of beables. I Use the term ‘beable’ rather that some more committed term like ‘being’ or ‘beer’ to recall the essentially tentative nature of any physical theory. Such a theory is at best a candidate for the description of nature. Terms like ‘being,’ ‘beer,’ ‘existent’ would seem to me lacking in humanity. In fact ‘beable’ is short for ‘maybe-able.’ (2)

Berezutskii, Aleksandr, et al. Probing Criticality in Quantum Spin Chains with Neural Networks. arXiv:2005.02104. A five person team based at the Deep Quantum Laboratory, Skolkovo Institute of Science, Moscow including Jacob Biamonte provide further insights into nature’s deep attraction to reside at an optimum critical poise even in the previously remote, fundamental depth.

The numerical emulation of quantum systems often requires an exponential number of degrees of freedom which translates to a computational bottleneck. Recent studies have revealed that neural networks are suitable for the determination of macroscopic phases of matter and associated phase transitions as well as efficient quantum state representation. In this work, we address quantum phase transitions in quantum spin chains and show that even neural networks with no hidden layers can be effectively trained to distinguish between magnetically ordered and disordered phases. Our results extend to a wide class of interacting quantum many-body systems and illustrate the wide applicability of neural networks to many-body quantum physics. (Abstract)

The concept of deep learning has attracted dramatic interest over the last decade. First applied in the domain of image and natural speech recognition, algorithms for machine learning have recently shown their utility in statistical mechanics of interacting classical and quantum systems. (2) The application of machine learning to quantum information problems has also received significant interest recently, promising to directly probe the entanglement entropy as well as other properties. (2)

Quantum spin-chains are particular examples of exactly solvable or "quantum integrable" systems in 1+1 spacetime dimensions. Picture a ring of atoms (in order to have periodic boundary conditions) each of which possesses a quantum "degree of freedom", called a "spin", which can point in two directions, up or down. "Quantum" means that we allow for all complex linear superpositions of the different possible spin configurations of the ring, this set forms the physical state space. (Google)

Berkelbach, Timothy and Michael Thoss. Special Topic on Dynamics of Open Quantum Systems. Journal of Chemical Physics. 152/020401, 2020. A summary introduction to 55 papers published last year in this journal, as cited in the references, involved with the broad technical study and avail of nature’s deepest realm. One might imagine the opening of a newly accessible frontier whence micro and macro realms become one and the same, so as to (re)join universe and human.

Open quantum systems that exchange energy or particles with their environment occur in a wide variety of fields including chemical physics, condensed matter physics, quantum information, optics, and thermodynamics. Examples in chemical physics range from molecules in solution and at surfaces to molecular junctions, where single molecules are coupled to electrodes at different chemical potentials or temperatures. The coupling to the environment gives rise to dynamical processes such as fluctuations, dephasing, relaxation, thermalization, nonequilibrium excitation, and transport. The understanding of these processes is a major goal in the field of condensed-phase chemical dynamics. (1)

Bharti, Kishor, et al. Machine Learning Meets Quantum Foundations. AVS Quantum Science. 2/3, 2020. Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore physicists including Vlatko Vedral survey the many ways that versatile neural network AI methods have become useful for entanglement, contextuality, nonlocality and other quantum studies. Our further interest is to wonder that as these dynamic topologies become adaptable for so many areas outside a brain, could it imply an actual cerebral essence for the whole ecosmos?

The goal of machine learning is to facilitate a computer to execute a specific task without explicit instruction by an external party. Quantum foundations seek to explain the conceptual and mathematical edifice of quantum theory. Recently, ideas from machine learning have successfully been applied to different problems in quantum foundations. Here, the authors compile the representative works done so far at the interface of machine learning and quantum foundations. (Abstract)

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