This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This CAREER award supports an integrated research and education program emphasizing the theoretical study of feedback control and entanglement production with continuous quantum measurement in solid state systems. A theory will be developed that describes quantum state evolution. It applies stochastic path integrals to account for real-time feedback on the quantum system. This theory should shed new light on quantum control theory, non-unitary quantum dynamics, and the measurement problem. Theoretical proposals for experiments in fabricated quantum Hall geometries will also be developed. The work supported under this award provides a good environment to introduce graduate students to a frontier area of theoretical physics, intimately connected with parallel experimental activity.
The educational component of this CAREER award includes the development of a quantum strangeness course for local high school students that builds on the successful and long-standing Rochester Scholars programs. A series of mini-lectures and demonstrations will also be developed to get local high school students more interested in the basics of quantum physics. This program for local high-school students is offered during the school breaks and the summer, and interested undergraduate physics students will be involved in equipment set-up, assist in the demonstrations, and work individually with visiting high school students. The lecture series will educate and interest high school students in some of the most exciting and intriguing areas of quantum physics.
NONTECHNICAL SUMMARY This CAREER award supports an integrated theoretical research and education program on how to control quantum mechanical states in materials and to advance understanding of the consequences of quantum mechanics on measurement. Recent experimental advances have led to the ability to place atoms and make structures that are some ten to a hundred thousand times smaller than a human hair. This opens the possibility of manipulating quantum mechanical states to make new device technologies. In this world of the tiny, quantum mechanics as opposed to the more familiar classical mechanics that describes our macroscopic world, provides the appropriate description. This research project focuses on how quantum mechanical states entwine to form entangled states, the consequences of quantum mechanics on measurement, and how to develop the analog of feedback in the quantum mechanical world. Many devices based on classical mechanics use the output signal to control their operation and enable a desired result. Quantum mechanics places constraints on measurement and how feedback might be possible.
The ability to control quantum mechanical states in materials would constitute a major technological breakthrough and provides a new window into the quantum world. This work contributes to the emerging areas of quantum engineering and quantum information science which may lead to new device technologies, particularly information technologies.
The educational component of this CAREER award includes the development of a quantum strangeness course for local high school students that builds on the successful and long-standing Rochester Scholars programs. A series of mini-lectures and demonstrations will also be developed to get local high school students more interested in the basics of quantum physics. This program for local high-school students is offered during the school breaks and the summer, and interested undergraduate physics students will be involved in equipment set-up, assist in the demonstrations, and work individually with the visiting high school students. The lecture series will educate and interest high school students in some of the most exciting and intriguing areas of quantum physics.
