02 Mar 2015

A University of Nottingham physicist has won a major European grant to uncover more secrets of the mind-bending world of quantum matter.

Dr Gerardo Adesso will use the 1.35M Euro Starting Grant from the European Research Council to investigate new and original manifestations of quantum mechanics. The work could speed up the development of the quantum technologies of the future.

Scientists have known for the past century that the quantum world of molecular, atomic and subatomic particles operates very differently to the macroscopic world of objects and forces in the universe. While originally considered paradoxical, quantum effects such as coherence *and entanglement **  are already being harnessed by scientists as resources for breakthrough technologies like quantum computers, yet the quantum industrial revolution has still not properly begun.

Looking in the right places

Dr Adesso’s project challenges whether quantum research has been harvesting quantum resources in the right place and conditions. Traditionally it is thought the best environment is an isolated, static and temperature-controlled one but newly obtained evidence purports that highly noisy and complex systems and environments previously disregarded as unlikely sources, could in fact offer up novel and useful quantum effects.

Dr Adesso, Associate Professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences, said: “The project is deeply driven by a scientific curiosity to understand the ultimate regime of validity of quantum mechanics. Thanks to this ERC grant I can assemble a team to investigate such foundational questions as well as to deliver results of practical relevance for quantum information technologies, including optimal strategies for quantum communication, metrology and thermal engineering.

“The ERC funding is crucial for me to bring forward a blue-sky type of research, whereas national funding at the moment is investing massively in immediate commercialisation of current quantum technologies. I believe we still need to advance the fundamental aspects. Only by learning as much as possible about ‘quantumness’, about what genuinely makes quantum technologies more powerful than classical ones, and under which conditions such advantages can be sustained, we will be able to trigger the long-awaited quantum industrial revolution. In the next five years I wish to contribute primarily to this exciting endeavour.”

Harmony from quantum discord

Professor Ian Dryden, Head of the School of Mathematical Sciences, said: “I am absolutely delighted that Dr Gerardo Adesso has been awarded this prestigious grant. Dr Adesso's high-quality research into quantum information science has helped to put The University of Nottingham at the leading edge of the discipline. His novel theoretical work has great promise for the development of future quantum technologies, like the superfast computers of tomorrow.”

Dr Adesso’s group at The University of Nottingham has already challenged the established paradigm on quantum correlations, identifying and interpreting (by both theory and experiment) novel versatile resources that yield advantages in quantum information processing, such as quantum discord.

The new research will try to formally characterise all types of quantum correlations, within a hierarchy dictated by their usefulness as resources, with a long-term goal to establish a universal framework to reveal and exploit quantum enhancements in complex systems, including physical, engineered, natural, biological and social phenomena, inspired from last-century cybernetics.

* coherence: The ability of a quantum system to display superposition and interference phenomena.

** entanglement: The phenomenon whereby the quantum state of two or more particles cannot be separated into individual states for each particle, even though they are spatially separated or not physically connected. Measurements performed on one particle seem to instantaneously affect the second particle entangled with it. Entanglement is a resource for quantum communication, e.g. quantum teleportation, and quantum cryptography.