Early career award recognizes Montana State professor’s quantum computing research

BOZEMAN - A Montana State University chemist who created a platform for studying quantum systems that could lead to the development of new, high-powered computing capability has received a prestigious Early Career Research Program Award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Martin Mosquera, an assistant professor in MSU's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Letters and Science, will use the award's accompanying $875,000 grant to expand the modeling platform, which he designed at MSU to predict the erratic behavior of atomic particles, also known as quantum systems. Specifically, he will lead a student team working to predict the behavior of neutral atoms - those that carry no electrical charge - which show promise as potential building blocks for advanced, analog quantum computing.

Yves Idzerda, dean of the College of Letters of Science and director of the MonArk Quantum Foundry where Mosquera also conducts research, said the award recognizes Mosquera's expertise and leadership potential.

"Career awards identify young experts in a field who will be taking over leadership roles as the field continues to move forward," Idzerda said. "These are very important awards, beyond just the value to the researcher but also to the institution that identifies them as experts that other people will want to work with."

Joan Broderick, MSU professor and head of the chemistry department, said the award also provides support for cutting-edge research that aligns with MSU's expanding efforts in quantum science.

"We are thrilled that the Department of Energy has recognized Martin Mosquera's creativity and potential to make major contributions to advancing quantum computing," she said.

According to the DOE award abstract, neutral-atom quantum computers may hold the key to solving significant scientific challenges that are beyond the reach of conventional computers. Mosquera explained that most quantum computers operate in digital mode by assigning large numbers of operations to qubits, which are the quantum computing counterparts to bits, the binary ones and zeroes used in classical computing. Quantum digital devices must rapidly execute circuits with many components, but the speed of those complex operations is limited.

An emerging form of analog quantum computing offers an alternative, in which all the qubits in the system "dance in different ways to the same song," said Mosquera. Neutral-atom analog quantum computers would be designed to respond to directions from exerted optical lasers, similar to how analog radios or clocks respond to a turn of their dials. The analog quantum computing system's ability to bypass multi-step processing would increase its computation power considerably, allowing the computer to perform such tasks as simulating changes in natural systems over time.

"This would have a great advantage in terms of simulating very complex systems, such as physical and chemical systems, that are out of access to conventional computing," Mosquera said. "For example, there are numerous chemical reactions in the human brain that are not well understood, because scientists do not have the computational means of quantifying all the effects that happen in these reactions. A quantum computer could change this."

But scientists need more information about how the components of a neutral-atom analog computer would respond to the lasers, and Mosquera will use the DOE funding to further develop his methods to predict those behaviors with high accuracy.

"It's impossible to predict as a whole what it will do, but we can predict small pieces of it," Mosquera said. "Anything is the sum of its pieces, so if you understand the pieces well, you develop an understanding of how the system can operate as a whole."

Mosquera will hire a graduate student and a postdoctoral researcher to assist with the DOE research. He also plans to recruit undergraduate students to participate in the project.

"I plan to work with students and postdoctoral fellows at MSU to reach a comprehensive prediction of dynamical physical properties of neutral atoms and discover new quantum behaviors," he said. "We have worked very hard to understand effective means to study difficult quantum systems and are very glad our efforts are leading to new exciting projects."

Mosquera said his decision to specialize in computational chemistry grew out of his dual interests in chemistry and mathematical science.

"When I finished high school, I had to question myself - do I want to be in a lab, or do I want to sit down at a desk and grab a pencil?" he said. "I don't regret it. I joke with my colleagues, 'Good luck in the lab!' while I sit down with a cup of coffee and go to work."

Nevertheless, Mosquera said he works closely with experimental scientists to ensure that his models are accurate.

"Our goal is to predict, using theoretical or numerical methods, with high accuracy, what we'll be seeing in the lab," he said.

Mosquera, who is originally from Colombia, said he was attracted to MSU in 2020 because of Bozeman's climate, the collegial environment in the chemistry department and the opportunity to teach computational chemistry to a variety of students.

"I am grateful to the thriving environment at MSU and to my colleagues, who are amazing," he said.

Mosquera is one of 91 scientists from across the country to receive a five-year DOE research award through the 2024 Early Career Research Program. More information about the scientists and their research projects is available at https://science.osti.gov/early-career.