A group of South Korean scientists, together with German researchers, have discovered new properties of transition from quantum to classical physics that may help build an entirely different kind of quantum computers, the government said Monday.

In their paper, titled “Non-monotonic quantum-to-classical transition in multiparticle interference,” the scientists claimed to have theoretically and experimentally proved that the long-believed monotonicity of the quantum-to-classical transition is, in fact, an exception rather than the rule when a multiple number of particles interfere.

The quantum-to-classical transition has long been believed to be a monotonic process where wave-like interference from particles gradually and monotonically fades away.

The researchers include professor Kim Yoon-ho of South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology and Ra Young-sik, a doctoral student from the same university.

The discovery of the non-monotonic nature of the quantum-to-classical transition in multiparticle interference opens “perspectives for the experimental characterization of many-particle coherence and sheds light on decoherence processes in many-particle systems,” said the paper, which was published in the Jan. 7 edition of U.S. science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Yonhap News)