Current students

Gerard Valentí Rojas - The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Spain

The laws of quantum mechanics have helped scientists to unravel the behaviour of nature at its most fundamental scales. However, quantum phenomena are often difficult to understand and simulations have historically provided a useful framework for their study. Nevertheless, when dealing with large quantum systems or real-time dynamics, the computational cost of numerical simulations can become unfeasible.

Matthew Day, University of Bristol and National Physical Laboratory, UK

Trapped ions are one of the most mature platforms for quantum information processing, quantum-enhanced sensing, and precision spectroscopy. Scaling to large numbers of trapped ions remains an open, technological challenge that would help advance the functionality and usefulness of the platform. The production of ion microtrap arrays, fabricated using MEMS techniques, has provided a key component to this scaling challenge.

Hydrogen and hydride superconductors, a new path to room temperature superconductivity?

The recent discovery of superconductivity in H₃S under high pressure by the group of Mikhail Eremets at the record breaking temperature of 203 K has opened a whole new path to potential room temperature superconductivity. I will describe recent experiments designed to verify the pairing mechanism in this new material using infrared spectroscopy.

Nikolai Lauk, University of Calgary

Realization of a quantum network that enables ecient long-distance entanglement distribution would allow for multiple impressive applications with quantum key distribution being the most prominent one.

Dusan Sarenac: Far-field moire neutron interferometry

In this talk I will present our work on developing far-field moire neutron interferometry at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Center for Neutron Research. We have successfully built a two phase-grating moire interferometer and employed it for phase contrast imaging.

Kyle Willick: Carbon Nanotube Mechanical Resonators - Magnetic force detection and fast sensing

Suspended carbon nanotube (CNT) resonators have demonstrated excellent sensitivity in mass and force sensing applications to date. I will introduce these mechanical resonators, and how they can be combined with magnetic field gradients to realize magnetic moment readout.

David Gosset, IBM TJ Watson Research Center

There is strong evidence that a sufficiently large fault-tolerant quantum computer would solve certain computational problems exponentially faster than any classical computer. How can quantum algorithms and complexity theory help guide the way forward in our current era of small and noisy quantum computers?

Andrew N. Cleland, University of Chicago

Superconducting qubits offer excellent prospects for manipulating quantum information, with good qubit lifetimes, high fidelity single- and two-qubit gates, and straightforward scalability (admittedly with multi-dimensional interconnect challenges). One interesting route for experimental development is the exploration of hybrid systems, i.e. coupling superconducting qubits to other systems.

Colloquium featuring Karl Jansen - NIC/DESY Zeuthen, Germany

The strong interaction of quarks and gluons is described theoretically within the framework of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The most promising way to evaluate QCD for all energy ranges is to formulate the theory on a 4 dimensional Euclidean space-time grid, which allows for numerical simulations on state of the art supercomputers. We will review the status of lattice QCD calculations providing examples such as the hadron spectrum and the inner structure of nucleons.

Quantum mechanics reveals that at its core, the world is not as it seems – it is far more interesting.
 
In the quantum world, outcomes are counter-intuitive, differing from what we expect based on our everyday experiences. The particle physicist Richard Feynman remarked that this means we seem to have to walk “a logical tightrope” when we talk about a quantum system.