U.S. Department of Energy unveils blueprint for the quantum internet at ‘Launch to the Future: Quantum Internet’ event

Editor’s note: The following press release was issued today by the U.S. Department of Energy. It announces the unveiling of a report that lays out the blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet.

Fermilab planted the seeds for a future quantum internet on its Batavia, Illinois, site in 2017 with the installation of the Caltech-led Fermilab Quantum Network, or FQNET. FQNET is a system developed through a long-term partnership with AT&T, Caltech and Fermilab. In 2018, FQNET successfully demonstrated quantum teleportation at the lab. FQNET also acts as a test bed for state-of-the-art systems developed by Caltech. This year, Caltech achieved a record rate of high-fidelity quantum teleportation.

Using advanced quantum technology and joining with world-leading institutions in quantum information science, Fermilab and its partners are expanding the laboratory’s point-to-point network to a multinode system that will crisscross Chicagoland: the Illinois Express Quantum Network. IEQNET will connect Fermilab, Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University’s Evanston and Chicago campuses in a flexible quantum-network architecture. IEQNET leverages the research and technological advances of the FQNET program. This year, IEQNET demonstrated routing of entangled photons generated at FQNET between on-site nodes several kilometers apart.

IEQNET is part of a research program on quantum network technologies funded by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, which also supports the Inter-campus Network Enabled by Atomic Quantum Repeater Nodes project, led by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University. The Inter-campus Network focuses on key quantum network technologies. The quantum internet blueprint provides a framework for researchers on both efforts work together to build a national quantum internet.

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Nationwide effort to build quantum networks and usher in new era of communications

In a press conference today at the University of Chicago, the U.S. Department of Energy unveiled a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet, bringing the United States to the forefront of the global quantum race and ushering in a new era of communications. This report provides a pathway to ensure the development of the National Quantum Initiative Act, which was signed into law by President Trump in December of 2018.

Around the world, consensus is building that a system to communicate using quantum mechanics represents one of the most important technological frontiers of the 21st century. Scientists now believe that the construction of a prototype will be within reach over the next decade.

In February of this year, DOE National Laboratories, universities and industry met in New York City to develop the blueprint strategy of a national quantum internet, laying out the essential research to be accomplished, describing the engineering and design barriers, and setting near-term goals.

“The Department of Energy is proud to play an instrumental role in the development of the national quantum internet,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. “By constructing this new and emerging technology, the United States continues with its commitment to maintain and expand our quantum capabilities.”

DOE’s 17 National Laboratories will serve as the backbone of the coming quantum internet, which will rely on the laws of quantum mechanics to control and transmit information more securely than ever before. Currently in its initial stages of development, the quantum internet could become a secure communications network and have a profound impact on areas critical to science, industry and national security.

Crucial steps toward building such an internet are already underway in the Chicago region, which has become one of the leading global hubs for quantum research. In February of this year, scientists from DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, and the University of Chicago entangled photons across a 52-mile “quantum loop” in the Chicago suburbs, successfully establishing one of the longest land-based quantum networks in the nation. That network will soon be connected to DOE’s Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, establishing a three-node, 80-mile test bed.

“The combined intellectual and technological leadership of the University of Chicago, Argonne and Fermilab has given Chicago a central role in the global competition to develop quantum information technologies,” said Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago. “This work entails defining and building entirely new fields of study, and with them, new frontiers for technological applications that can improve the quality of life for many around the world and support the long-term competitiveness of our city, state and nation.”

“Argonne, Fermilab and the University of Chicago have a long history of working together to accelerate technology that drives U.S. prosperity and security,” said Argonne Director Paul Kearns. “We continue that tradition by tackling the challenges of establishing a national quantum internet, expanding our collaboration to tap into the vast power of American scientists and engineers around the country.”

“Decades from now, when we look back to the beginnings of the quantum internet, we’ll be able to say that the original nexus points were here in Chicago — at Fermilab, Argonne and the University of Chicago,” said Nigel Lockyer, director of Fermilab. “As part of an existing scientific ecosystem, the DOE National Laboratories are in the best position to facilitate this integration.”

 

A range of unique abilities

One of the hallmarks of quantum transmissions is that they are exceedingly difficult to eavesdrop on as information passes between locations. Scientists plan to use that trait to make virtually unhackable networks. Early adopters could include industries such as banking and health services, with applications for national security and aircraft communications. Eventually, the use of quantum networking technology in mobile phones could have broad impacts on the lives of individuals around the world.

Scientists are also exploring how the quantum internet could expedite the exchange of vast amounts of data. If the components can be combined and scaled, society may be at the cusp of a breakthrough in data communication, according to the report.

Finally, creating networks of ultrasensitive quantum sensors could allow engineers to better monitor and predict earthquakes — a longtime and elusive goal — or to search for underground deposits of oil, gas or minerals. Such sensors could also have applications in health care and imaging.

 

A multilab, multi-institution effort

Creating a full-fledged prototype of a quantum internet will require intense coordination among U.S. federal agencies — including DOE, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the National Security Agency and NASA — along with National Laboratories, academic institutions and industry.

The report lays out crucial research objectives, including building and then integrating quantum networking devices, perpetuating and routing quantum information, and correcting errors. Then, to put the nationwide network into place, there are four key milestones: verify secure quantum protocols over existing fiber networks, send entangled information across campuses or cities, expand the networks between cities, and finally expand between states, using quantum “repeaters” to amplify signals.

“The foundation of quantum networks rests on our ability to precisely synthesize and manipulate matter at the atomic scale, including the control of single photons,” said David Awschalom, Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. “Our National Laboratories house world-class facilities to image materials with subatomic resolution and state-of-the-art supercomputers to model their behavior. These powerful resources are critical to accelerating progress in quantum information science and engineering and to leading this rapidly evolving field in collaboration with academic and corporate partners.”

“In addition to our collaboration with the University of Chicago, Fermilab is working with Argonne, Caltech, Northwestern University and tech startups to develop the architecture and gradually deploy and connect quantum communication nodes across the city of Chicago. Before long, with this second group of collaborators, we’ll be teleporting data across a metropolitan network,” said Panagiotis Spentzouris, head of quantum programs at Fermilab. “This blueprint is important for telling us how we build this out nationwide.”

Other National Laboratories are also driving advances in quantum networking and related technologies. For example, Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory, working with the DOE’s Energy Sciences Network headquartered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have established an 80-mile quantum network test bed and are actively expanding it in New York State and at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Other research groups are focused on developing a quantum cryptography system with highly secured information.

Editor’s note: This article has been revised to correct the year FQNET successfully demonstrated quantum teleportation at the lab. It has been corrected from 2019 to 2018.

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Fermilab quantum science research is supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Fermilab is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

Today marked a historic moment for two projects carrying science at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory into the future. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Under Secretary for Science joined Fermilab leadership and partners for the pair of milestones: the site dedication of the laboratory’s Integrated Engineering Research Center and the groundbreaking for its PIP-II cryoplant building.

“These world-class facilities at Fermilab are going to drive discovery and a leading research program,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar. “It’s an exciting moment in our national labs’ history – and a moment flush with potential for the future.”

The two projects help usher in a new era of science and support cutting-edge research, including the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment hosted by Fermilab. This flagship experiment, powered by the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, seeks answers to some of the biggest puzzles in physics through the study of minuscule particles called neutrinos.

“The two milestones today reflect the global interest and investment in neutrino research and advancing technology in service of science,” said Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer. “We’re excited to push forward on these efforts and to see how we can unlock some of the secrets of our universe.”

The Integrated Engineering Research Center will bring together engineers, technicians and scientists to tackle the technical challenges of particle physics. Nestled next to Fermilab’s iconic Wilson Hall, the building will centralize engineering expertise near the core of Fermilab’s campus. The new space will provide room for collaboration, research, design, construction, and tests of technologies related to neutrino research (including LBNF and DUNE), detectors (such as upgrade projects for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN), quantum science programs, electronics and ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) development, and more.

“It’s critical that we have a dedicated space to bring together experts from all sorts of disciplines to tackle tough challenges and make breakthroughs,” said IERC Project Director Randy Ortgiesen. “And with reconfigurable spaces within the building, the structure can evolve and support the different needs of the lab as new projects arise.”

Just a stone’s throw beyond the engineering center, attendees broke ground on a crucial piece of infrastructure for the lab’s future research program: the PIP-II cryoplant building. The structure will house the cryogenic plant equipment, which includes a cold box, warm compressors and infrastructure for the utilities to support the cryoplant operation. Together, they will keep PIP-II, the new linear particle accelerator, cooled to roughly the temperature of outer space.

The cryoplant receives support from institutions in India, just one example of the internationality of the broader PIP-II program. PIP-II is the first U.S. accelerator project built with major international contributions. Partners in France, India, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States are contributing to the centerpiece of PIP-II, a new superconducting radio frequency linear accelerator. The PIP-II project also includes upgrades that will enable Fermilab’s accelerator complex to generate particle beams at higher powers than previously available. Once complete, the complex will deliver a one-megawatt-plus proton beam that will be used to make the world’s highest-intensity neutrino beam for DUNE and enable Fermilab’s science program for many decades to come.

“We are building a state-of-the-art particle accelerator and have been fortunate to have such dedicated collaborators around the world who are making this effort possible,” said PIP-II Project Director Lia Merminga. “PIP-II pushes the limits of technology, and that requires bringing together the world’s best minds to make it happen.”

Today’s construction milestones are the latest in a series of steps to enhance Fermilab’s broad range of particle physics experiments and prepare for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. DUNE has more than 1,000 collaborators from more than 180 institutions in over 30 countries. The experiment will send neutrinos from Fermilab through 800 miles (1,300 km) of earth, no tunnel required, to enormous detectors one mile (1.5 km) below the surface at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Just last month, construction crews set off the first blasts underground, part of the process to remove more than 800,000 tons of rock and create space for the liquid-argon detectors. Near-site construction on LBNF began at Fermilab in November 2019.

Find more information on DUNE and LBNF and PIP-II.

Fermilab is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics and accelerator research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance LLC, a joint partnership between the University of Chicago and the Universities Research Association, Inc. Visit Fermilab’s website at www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @Fermilab.

Fermilab work on DUNE and LBNF is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science.

Fermilab is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

Fans of Fermilab know that our scientists are experts in the weird realm of quantum physics. For decades, they’ve studied a world that operates on mind-bending principles such as quantum superposition (famously illustrated by Schrödinger’s cat), quantum entanglement (spooky action at a distance!) and quantum of solace (just checking that you’re paying attention).

In recent years, they’ve been harnessing the strange properties of the quantum world to develop game-changing technologies in quantum computing, quantum sensors and quantum communication.

Learn more about the burgeoning field of quantum information science and Fermilab’s contributions by browsing the offerings below. Find out how this research advances our understanding of the universe’s subatomic structure and how this knowledge supports new developments in quantum technology.

Enjoy!

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Fermilab’s quantum science program is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science.

Fermilab is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

Physics poster sessions: a heady mix of science, networking and robots. That last one isn’t so common at in-person science conferences, but it was a regular sight at the recently concluded Neutrino 2020 conference, where virtual reality poster sessions hosted thousands of robotic avatars belonging to particle physicists from around the world. While most walked through the virtual world as a robot in vaguely human clothing, others donned panda suits, uploaded custom skins with gigantic human heads or particle tracks or – in one case – turned themselves into a jar of Jif peanut butter.

“It’s both more weird and more fun than I expected,” said Diana Parno, a physicist at Carnegie Mellon University who presented in one of the virtual poster sessions. “And one of the nice things about poster sessions is meeting with new people and colleagues, and making introductions – and we’ve still been able to do that.”

The 29^th International Conference on Neutrino Physics is the largest gathering of neutrino scientists in the world. This year the conference was hosted jointly by the Department of Energy’s Fermilab and the University of Minnesota and, for the first time, held entirely online. The change brought many advantages to the conference. Notably, more than 3,400 people from 67 countries and covering all seven continents tuned in to the 79 talks – more than four times the typical number of attendees. (Almost half of attendees were early in their career, identifying as undergraduate or graduate students.) Instead of full days of talks, half-days were spread over two weeks, allowing greater involvement from participants in different time zones. Going virtual also meant some individuals with monetary restrictions, travel restrictions, or obligations at home or work could participate.

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  All who enter are interested in neutrinos. Image: Lauren Biron
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  Avatars search for the truth about neutrinos. Image: Sam Zeller
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  The Neutrino 2020 teleportation platform offers you many choices. What's behind screen number 16? Image: Lauren Biron
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  Fermilab's iconic Wilson Hall and bison tell you you're in the accelerator neutrino room. Image: Sam Zeller
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  It's the solar neutrino room. Image: Lauren Biron
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  It's the reactor neutrino room. Image: Lauren Biron
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  Who wants to learn more about supernova neutrinos? Image: Lauren Biron
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  The COHERENT collaboration meets in the virtual Chicago outdoors. Image: Peter Denton

The decision to move online about two months before the event also brought challenges. Organizers were faced with quickly transitioning one of the most valuable parts of the conference: the networking, serendipitous interactions and other engagement that happens outside of the scheduled talks. That’s where virtual reality poster sessions came in.

“What we really wanted from this platform is a way for people to interact with others as if they were in person,” said Marco Del Tutto, a Fermilab physicist who created the virtual poster sessions using open source software from Mozilla Hubs. “It’s hard to tell if this is going to work until you try. It made me proud when I went into a poster session and saw people explaining their poster to a crowd, or walking through a room and running into people.”

Over the course of four sessions, presenters showed off 532 posters on display in 30 different virtual reality rooms. (A standard list of posters and short videos from the presenters were also available on a webpage). While in-person posters are typically set up in one concentrated area, spreading the posters across virtual rooms gave avatars more space – and reduced the amount of bandwidth to run each interactive area. It also gave Del Tutto a chance to add a neutrino twist. Four different styles of room represented four different sources of neutrinos: Fermilab’s iconic bison and Wilson Hall were the backdrop for accelerator neutrinos, a nuclear power plant represented reactor neutrinos, an enormous sun hung low in the sky for solar neutrinos and an exploding star overhead for supernova neutrinos. To complete the conference vibe, there were tables, couches and cookies scattered around.

Participants could talk in real time, their avatars’ heads rapidly bouncing around. Directional sound in headphones gave a sense of where different people were in the room and allowed users to stumble upon conversations. Walking around, one overheard all the usual topics of discussion at a physics conference – results, experimental status, careers, life updates – as well as discussion of the oddities of virtual environment – the digital bison standing nearby, how to make your avatar wear a tuxedo, the underlying technology and the inevitable glitch here or there.

“It’s clearly the kind of thing that will get better and better,” said Kate Scholberg, a neutrino physicist at Duke University and a member of the International Advisory Committee for the conference. She also gathered together about 20 members of the COHERENT collaboration for an avatar group photo in Grant Park. “It’s different, and I think it’s been really fun. I’ve been having conversations with people, and it replicates many of the in-person aspects.”

Del Tutto and the organizers also set up social rooms for researchers to hang out and chat, as well as virtual tours of Fermilab locations and spots in downtown Chicago.

“The other part of a conference is that, if it’s really in Chicago, it’s a chance to see the city with your colleagues, get to know them better and improve your working relationship with them,” Del Tutto said.

Of course, virtual reality was not the only way to interact with colleagues. Attendees also connected through chat on a dedicated Neutrino 2020 Slack account. Organizers set up channels for subsets of neutrino research (such as sterile neutrinos or long-baseline neutrinos) where attendees could drop in additional questions for the speakers and discuss ideas from the talks. There were also specific channels for topics such as the future of conferences, posters, help from the organizers, virtual reality and job opportunities. The Neutrino 2020 Slack saw more than 23,000 messages over the two-week conference.

“We had to change our plans quickly and explore creative options for making the conference as interactive as possible,” said Tanaz Mohayai, a Fermilab neutrino physicist and the webpage lead for Neutrino 2020. “It’s been wonderful to see the excitement surrounding the latest results in our field, as well as the many meaningful conversations taking place on Slack and in the poster sessions in the virtual world.”

Many attendees expect to see the virtual reality and chat features of Neutrino 2020 replicated in future online physics conferences – but it may not stop there. As conferences return to having an in-person component, there’s potential to keep the best of what works from the online world. One can envision a hybrid conference that allows for participation from around the world, virtual interactions and greater discussion through chat. And maybe, just maybe, there will be people walking around poster sessions dressed as robots – or a jar of peanut butter.

The poster portal, videos and recordings of plenary talks will continue to be available online at the Neutrino 2020 website.

Neutrino research at Fermilab is supported by the DOE Office of Science

Fermilab is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

The Fermilab magnet team has done it again. After setting a world record for an accelerator magnet in 2019, they have broken it a year later.

In a June 2020 test, a demonstrator magnet designed and built by the magnet team at the Department of Energy’s Fermilab achieved a 14.5-tesla field strength for an accelerator steering dipole magnet, surpassing their previous record of 14.1 T.

This test is an important step toward addressing the demanding magnet requirements of a future hadron collider under discussion in the particle physics community. If built, such a collider would be four times larger and almost eight times more powerful than the 17-mile-circumference Large Hadron Collider at the European laboratory CERN, which operates at a steering field of 7.8 T. Current future-collider designs estimate the field strength for a steering magnet — the magnet responsible for bending particle beams around a curve — to be up to 16 T.

“Our next goal is to break the ’15-tesla wall’ and advance the maximum field in accelerator steering magnets to 17 T and even above, significantly improve magnet quench performance and optimize cost,” said Fermilab scientist Alexander Zlobin, who leads the magnet project. “Reaching these goals will provide strong foundation for future high-energy colliders.”

Read more about the Fermilab-built future-collider steering magnet.

Research on accelerator magnets is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science.

Fermilab is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.