New IQC graduate wins American Physical Society award for exceptional contributions to physics community
By Naomi Grosman
Dr. José Polo-Gómez has won the American Physical Society’s (APS) 2026 Irwin Oppenheim Award for his research at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) where he earned his PhD in Applied Mathematics, Quantum Information from the University of Waterloo.
The award, which honours early-career scientists, recognizes Polo-Gómez “for showing that the second law of thermodynamics limits the ability to distinguish between quantum states” in his 2024 paper Thermodynamic bound on quantum state discrimination.
Dr. Polo-Gómez found that the second law of thermodynamics, a physical law that relates heat exchanges to disorder (and in its simplest form constrains how much heat can be converted into energy transfer), limits how well quantum states can be distinguished, a problem intimately related to how well information from quantum systems can be retrieved.
He credits a lot of his work to quantum physicist Asher Peres, who developed an early version of this argument in the 1990s.
“I feel deeply honoured by this unexpected recognition from the American Physical Society. I'm very fond of this paper, I think the main argument on which the result is based is both beautiful and simple.”
- Dr. José Polo-Gómez.
He extends his thanks to IQC faculty Dr. Richard Cleve, professor in the Department of Computer Science, and Dr. John Watrous. Polo-Gómez used Cleve’s quantum information course project as an “excuse” to start working on the paper and Watrous first taught him quantum information at IQC.
He wrote the paper while doing his PhD supervised by Dr. Eduardo Martín-Martínez, IQC affiliate and professor, Department of Applied Mathematics. His thesis focused on studying how to describe measurements of quantum fields with techniques from relativistic quantum information, a mathematical field which combines quantum information, general relativity, and quantum field theory.
Polo-Gómez says his fascination with quantum mechanics began in elementary school. Today he is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, and he continues to be driven by a deep curiosity about nature at its most fundamental level.
He came to Waterloo for the opportunity to work with Martín-Martínez and the interdisciplinary environment at IQC and nearby Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
“Waterloo is an environment where you’re bound to do interesting things with people from all kinds of backgrounds,” Polo-Gómez says.
After finishing his formal studies, his thirst for learning is far from quenched: “I’m still interested in all sorts of fundamental questions and want to understand how everything around me works. There are still so many unanswered questions and not enough time to think about all of them.”