Dr. Dmitry Pushin,
Research Assistant Professor, Institute for Quantum Computing
University of Waterloo
Neutron interferometer is a unique example of macroscopic quantum coherence. As neutrons experience all four fundamental forces of nature, neutron interferometer has been used as a very sensitive tool to test many aspects of physics, in particular, fundamental postulates of quantum mechanics. In practice, neutron interferometers are not widely used due to their extreme sensitivities to environmental noise, such as low frequency vibrations and temperature fluctuations. The sensitivity to vibrations results from the slow velocity (compared to light) of thermal neutrons and the long measurement time in a typical experiment. I will demonstrate that application of quantum information processes (QIP), such as decoherence-free subspace may be used to improve standard neutron interferometer designs (Mach-Zender (MZ)). Using QIP methods we have build a new decoherence-free (DF) neutron interferometer that is much less sensitive to low frequency vibrations than standard MZ interferometer. We believe that our results suggest that quantum information approaches will enable a new series of compact neutron interferometers that can be tailored to specific applications in soft condensed matter and spintronics.
