2005/11/16 by Gilles Brassard, Brassard, Gilles, Yuval Elias +15
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Metallurgical Processes and Thermodynamics #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0511156
11 pages, 6 Figures, submitted version
arxiv created 2005/11/16 · openalex publication_date 2005/11/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Algorithmic cooling is a novel technique to generate ensembles of highly polarized spins, which could significantly improve the signal strength in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. It combines reversible (entropy-preserving) manipulations and irreversible controlled interactions with the environment, using simple quantum computing techniques to increase spin polarization far beyond the Shannon entropy-conservation bound. Notably, thermalization is beneficially employed as an integral part of the cooling scheme, contrary to its ordinary destructive implications. We report the first cooling experiments bypassing Shannon's entropy-conservation bound, performed on a standard liquid-state NMR spectrometer. We believe that this experimental success could pave the way for the first near-future application of quantum computing devices.