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

1. Quantum Organics in the 21st Century

Chin, Alex, et al. Chain Representations of Open Quantum Systems. Uli Wurfel, et al, eds. Quantum Efficiency in Complex Systems. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2011. This Volume 85 in Semiconductors and Semimetals is subtitled “From Molecular Aggregates to Organic Solar Cells.” In this chapter, University of Ulm physicists Chin, with Susana Huelga and Martin Plenio, find the “dynamical behavior of interacting open quantum systems” to be in formative effect in many macro areas. Renormalization group methods help out, which augurs for general principles at work. And to reflect, what phenomenal agency are we selves to be able to learn and carry forth such brilliance?

Chitambar, Eric and Gilad Gour. Quantum Resource Theories. Reviews of Modern Physics. 91/025001, 2019. This paper by University of Illinois and University of Calgary physicists was first posted at arXiv:1806.06107 and has since been often referred to along with its title phrase as an insightful, frontier advance. For a major update and synthesis see Physicists Rewrite the Fundamental Law that Leads to Disorder by Philip Ball in Quanta (May 26, 2022).

Quantum resource theories (QRTs) offer a versatile framework for studying phenomena in quantum physics. From quantum entanglement to computation, resource theories can quantify a desirable effect, develop protocols for its detection, and optimize its use. A general QRT partitions quantum states into groups of free states and of resource states. Free states are quantum operations arising from natural restrictions placed on the physical system that force its operations to act invariantly. As a result, objects that appear distinct on the surface, such as entanglement and quantum reference frames, appear to have much similarity on a deeper structural level. (Abstract excerpt)

Coecke, Bob, ed. New Structures for Physics. Berlin: Springer, 2010. Into the 21st century as quantum realms become reconceived and accessible via complexity theories, which in turn implies that macro-classical phases such as linguistics have quantum-like qualities, a novel appreciation of iterative natural topologies can occur. This tome broadly joins dynamic computational, mathematic, physical, and information aspects, which the Oxford University editor is well versed in. A typical chapter is Compact Monoidal Categories from Linguistic to Physics by Jim Lambek, along with Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetts Stone by John Baez and Mike Stay. An evident synthesis of quanta and geometry implies a self-similar reality spanned by “networks of analogies” from universe to human. Please view Rosetta Cosmos for more papers by this group about an innately textual milieu.

By now there is an extensive network of interlocking analogies between physics, topology, logic and computer science. They suggest that research in the area of common overlap is actually trying to build a new science: a general science of systems and processes. Building this science will be very difficult (because) different fields use different terminology and notation. The original Rosetta Stone, created in 196 BC, contains versions of the same text in three languages: demotic Egyptian, hieroglyphic script and classical Greek. At present, the deductive systems in mathematical logic look like hieroglyphs to most physicists. Similarly, quantum field theory is Greek to most computer scientists, and so on. So, there is a need for a new Rosetta Stone to aid researchers attempting to translate between fields. (97, Baez & Stay)

Dalla Chiara, Maria Luisa, et al, eds. Quantum Computation and Logic. International: Springer, 2018. The editors are MLDC, University of Florence, Roberto Giuniti and Giuseppe Sergioli, University of Cagliari, and Roberto Leporini, University of Bergamo. We cite because the volume well conveys 21st century ways that micro quantum phenomena is gaining novel properties with an affinity with macro “classical” phases. An informational essence lends to algorithmic exercises, logic circuits and onto linguistic and musical compositions.

Deutsch, Ivan. Harnessing the Power of the Second Quantum Revolution. PRX Quantum. 1/020101, 2020. In this new APS journal, the director of the University of New Mexico’s Center for Quantum Information and Control describes how 2ist century informative and technical advances driven by incentives for faster computational abilities, copious data streams and more have led to a realization, in contrast to a 20th century opacity, that a radical familiar, treatable understanding and avail of this deepest realm is now going forward.

The second quantum revolution has been built on a foundation of fundamental research at the intersection of physics and information science, giving rise to a quantum information science (QIS). The quest for new knowledge and understanding drove the development of second-wave quantum technologies, including computers, sensors, and communication systems. Under what conditions then can we well apply quantum complexity and for what potential applications? Here I review how curiosity-driven research has led to radical new theories and technologies essential for further progress. (Abstract excerpt)

Dvali, Gia. Critically Excited States with Enhanced Memory and Pattern Recognition Capacities in Quantum Brain Networks: Lessons from Black Holes. arXiv:1711.09079. We select this entry by the Ludwig Maximilian University and MPI Physics researcher from a steady stream on this site and in journals of theoretical finesses of a wide ranging affinity, to say the least, between cerebral acuities and this celestial curiosity. The idea stretches the imagination, but fits well into growing realizations as we report here that everything from universe to human in essential way repeats and exemplifies an iconic cosmome and quantome to genome, neurome and culturome quickening genesis. See also Black Hole Based Quantum computing in Labs and in the Sky at 1601.01329, and Black Holes as Brains: Neural Networks with Area Low Entropy at 1801.03918.

We implement a mechanism - originally proposed as a model for the large memory storage capacity of black holes - in quantum neural networks and show that an exponentially increased capacity of pattern storage and recognition is achieved in certain critically excited states. These states are achieved thanks to the high excitation levels of some of the neurons, which dramatically lower the response threshold of the remaining weaker-excited neurons. As a result, the latter neurons acquire a capacity to store an exponentially large number of patterns within a narrow energy gap. The stored patterns can be recognized and retrieved with perfect response under the influence of arbitrarily soft input stimuli. The lesson is that the state with the highest micro-state entropy and memory storage capacity is not necessarily a local minimum of energy, but rather an excited critical state. The considered phenomenon has a smooth classical limit and can serve for achieving an enhanced memory storage capacity in classical brain networks. (Abstract excerpt)

Black holes and human brains are the two creations of nature that are extremely efficient storers of information. It is a legitimate question to ask whether these two seemingly remote systems share some fundamental mechanism for increased capacity of information storage. (1) Moreover, the above mechanism of the enhanced information storage capacity was shown to be operative in ordinary quantum systems, with bosonic qudits with attractive (excitatory) connections. Such a system effectively represents a quantum “brain” of sharply enhanced memory capacity, in which patterns can be encoded and retrieved at an arbitrarily small energy cost. (1)

Eastman, Timothy. Duality without Dualism. Eastman, Timothy and Hank Keeton, eds. Physics and Whitehead. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. (book cited in Historical Precedents) A comparison of classical, quantum and process approaches can reveal in Whitehead’s principia a dynamic complementarity of discrete separation and relative connectedness from which emerges an organic creation. With reference to our Part IV and website theme, these attributes presciently align with, in translation, the autonomous agents and communal relations of complex adaptive systems.

Economou, Sophia and Edwin Barnes. Hello Quantum World! A First-world University Course in Quantum Information Science.. arXiv:2210.02868. We note this entry by Virginia Tech physicists as a way to show how this arcane depth is now being treated as just another science subject. (but a residual weirdness persists in some areas.)

Addressing workforce shortages within the Quantum Information Science and Engineering fields requires students from diverse backgrounds early in their education. Here, we describe our undergrad course called Hello Quantum World! that introduces a broad range of quantum information and computation concepts in a rigorous way but without much mathematics beyond high-school algebra, nor quantum mechanics. Some of the topids include superposition, entanglement, quantum gates, teleportation, quantum algorithms, and more. (Abstract)

Elitzur, Avshalom, et al, eds. Quo Vadis Quantum Mechanics? Berlin: Springer, 2005. A publication based on a 2002 meeting of leading physicist philosophers. Not yet seen, we quote from the publishers website. (Elitzur’s bio on the Bar-Ilan University website is a great story.)

For more than a century, quantum mechanics has served as a very powerful theory that has expanded physics and technology far beyond their classical limits, yet it has also produced some of the most difficult paradoxes known to the human mind. This book represents the combined efforts of sixteen of today's most eminent theoretical physicists to lay out future directions for quantum physics. The authors include Yakir Aharonov, Anton Zeilinger; the Nobel laureates Anthony Leggett and Geradus 't Hooft; Basil Hiley, Lee Smolin and Henry Stapp. Following a foreword by Roger Penrose, the individual chapters address questions such as quantum non-locality, the measurement problem, quantum insights into relativity, cosmology and thermodynamics, and the possible bearing of quantum phenomena on biology and consciousness.

Faccin, Mauro, et al. Community Detection in Quantum Networks. arXiv:1310.6638. Theorists from Torino, Barcelona, and Oxford including Jacob Biamonte, continue the reinvention and integration of these depths by way of macro complex systems theories. From many aspects, over the past years, by picking up on information qualities, such subatomic activities are found to contain the same nonlinear forms and dynamics as everywhere else, the nested cosmos becomes one whole again. Mauro Faccin and others are planning a Quantum Frontiers in Network Science symposia at the large NetSci conference in June 2014 at UC Berkeley (Google). See also Degree Distribution in Quantum Walks on Complex Networks by Faccin, et al, at arXiv:1305.6078.

Determining the community structure is a central topic in the study of complex networks, be it technological, social, biological or chemical, static or interacting systems. In this paper, we extend the concept of community detection from classical to quantum systems --- a crucial missing component of a theory of complex networks based on quantum mechanics. By merging concepts from quantum physics and complex network theory, our work provides a bidirectional bridge of relevant analysis tools to address networks in both disciplines. (Abstract excerpts) Extending the concept of community detection to apply to quantum systems is a crucial step towards the ultimate goal of creating a theory of networks that augments the current statistical mechanics approach to complex network structure, evolution, and process with a new theory based on quantum mechanics. (1)

A grand challenge in contemporary complex network science is to reconcile the staple “statistical mechanics based approach”, with a theory based on quantum physics. When considering networks where quantum coherence effects play a non-trivial role, the predictive power of complex network science has been shown to break down. A new theory is now being developed which is based on quantum theory, from first principles. Network theory is a diverse subject which developed independently in several disciplines to rely on graphs with additional structure to model complex systems. Network science has of course played a significant role in quantum theory, ranging from methods of “tensor network states”, “chiral quantum walks on complex networks”, “categorical tensor networks” and “categorical models of quantum circuits”, to name only a few. However, the ideas of complex network science are only now starting to be united with modern quantum theory. (Quantum Frontiers Abstract)

Falkenburg, Brigitte and Margaret Morrison. Why More is Different: Philosophical Issues in Condensed Matter Physics and Complex Systems. Berlin: Springer, 2015. This year Springer has published an independent number of works that in different ways call the 20th century version of a passive mechanical nature into question. Search Frontiers Collection and Aguirre here for more editions. As the infinities of atom and cosmos run their course, they are inadequate to explain a universe that spontaneously generates emergent life, mind and persons. Some additional force and agency must be at work to achieve this. A main chapter is On the Success and Limitations of Reductionism in Physics by Hildegard Meyer-Ortmanns, which closes with A Step Towards a Universal Theory of Complex Systems. On the Relation Between the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Classical and Quantum Mechanics by Barbara Drossel follows next. In Why Is More Different the University of Toronto philosopher Margaret Morrison considers phase transitions, universality, emergence and renormalization groups. These several works realize that a radical correction in necessary, as they try to figure out how to get on with this. And it is hopeful that an increasing number of women are taking a lead role.

Farrow, Tristan, et al. A Measurable Physical Theory of Hyper-Correlcation beyond Quantum Mechanics. Physica Scripta. 96/1, 2021. We cite this entry by National University of Singapore, Oxford University and Sogang University, Seoul physicists including Vlatko Vedral as an example of what these theoretical conceptions seem to be coming upon. Their latest implications suggest that a deeper realm of phenomenal reality exists which is necessary to attain a full explanation. See also Spacetime as a Tightly Bound Quantum Crystal by V. Vedral at arXiv:2009.10836. and his Frontiers of Quantum Physics group website at oxfordquantum.web.ox.ac.uk.

A characteristic of quantum mechanics is entanglement of correlations between particles irrespective of their locations. This property, called non-locality, has no classical analogue. Over the past few years, quantum physicists have reached a consensus that we lack a physical theory to account for a class of states whose non-local character exceeds the bounds allowed by quantum mechanics. We propose an extension of the Schrödinger equation with non-linear terms so to relax Born's rule, an axiom of quantum mechanics, that accounts for such hyper-correlated states. (Abstract excerpt)

Physicists postulate the existence of a physical law that goes beyond quantum mechanics, which could lead to a modification of certain axioms underpinning quantum theory. The discovery of quantum mechanics at the dawn of the twentieth century led to major breakthroughs, from nuclear physics, microelectronics to quantum computing, which, by contrast to Newtonian physics, became known as modern physics. Quantum mechanics gives the most accurate description of microscopic objects like atoms and molecules. (1)

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