News

November 2011: Funding for Artificial Electromagnetism research

The Quantum Optics and Cold Atoms group led by Patrik Öhberg has been awarded £384k from EPSRC for research into Artificial Electromagnetism.

In 1982 Richard Feynman introduced the concept of a quantum emulator, as a possibility to circumvent the difficulty of simulating quantum physics with classical computers. His idea, based on the universality of quantum mechanics, was to use one controllable device to simulate other systems of interest. Nowadays Feynman's intuition is being implemented in various setups and among them ultracold gases of neutral atoms play a central role. The only missing ingredient for the charge neutral gas is the equivalent of orbital magnetism which would allow for the simulation of phenomena such as the Quantum Hall effect. The concept of optically induced artificial electromagnetism and gauge fields gets around this problem. This research programme, which includes a three year postdoc position, will investigate and stretch our understanding of matter and its constituents at the most fundamental level. It will deal with concepts ranging from the ultracold to the ultrahot; concepts from low temperature condensed matter physics and high energy physics with its description of interactions between elementary particles. The artificial gauge potentials can be made strong, they can be made inhomogeneous, and can have a multi dimensional matrix form. One can therefore access regimes which are not easily reached in conventional condensed matter systems and high energy physics.

For more information please contact Dr Patrik Öhberg. 

September 2011: Quantum research makes front page of Nature Physics

Researchers at Heriot-Watt and Glasgow University, part of SUPA, have shown that Nature plays dice with at least 11 faces, using light that looks like pasta spirals! An experiment using light with orbital angular momentum, featured on the cover of the September issue of Nature Physics, has proved that such light indeed posesses high-dimensional quantum entanglement. Such "supercorrelated" quantum states with high entanglement can be useful for ultrasensitive quantum metrology, secure quantum communication, and ultimately for quantum computers.

Quantum mechanics is a strange theory. It would seem reasonable that if we specify the initial conditions well enough, then we can predict exactly what should happen in any situation. For example, it is very difficult to predict the Scottish weather, but if we knew the exact position and velocity of every air molecule, and same for the clouds, sea etc., then we should in principle be able to predict the weather with certainty. It is only because we cannot possibly collect this sheer volume of data, never mind run the calculations even on a supercomputer, that we can't predict the weather. And same thing for any other process. Or?

Quantum mechanics says that this is fundamentally not the case. It only gives probabilities for events to occur, no matter how well we know the initial conditions. "Quantum weather" is fundamentally unpredictable. Einstein was uncomfortable with this, and famously said "God does not play dice".

This work proves that Nature plays dice with at least 11 faces each. This was achieved by using photons, or particles of light, that twist like pasta spirals, as the "dice". Exactly how the photons twisted was the different "faces" of the "dice". Previously, the record was "dice" with 2 and 3 "faces". Most experiments use the polarisation of light, that is, what direction the electromagnetic field is oscillating in. This gives a die with two faces. But the "twist" this experiment used, just like pasta, comes in inifinitely many shapes, so one can have dice with arbitrarily many faces.

The experiment was done in the lab of Miles Padgett at Glasgow University. Adetunmise Dada and Erika Andersson planned the experiment and analysed the results. Adetunmise Dada, together with Jonathan Leach from Glasgow University, performed the experimental work at Glasgow University in the Lab of Miles Padgett.

 

August 2011: Physics undergraduate receives award.

Heriot-Watt Physics student Ross Donaldson has scooped the prize for best presentation at the International Conference of Physics Students in Budapest. 

With over 100 presentations on topics ranging from theoretical particle physics to teaching in physics, Ross described his recent work on Quantum Key Distribution. This work was carried out during his summer internship supervised by Prof. Gerald Buller.

Ross believes making his topic accessible to a wide audiences was important for his success: “I made my presentation interactive using animations to explain trickier concepts and I tried to deliver it at a level that all undergraduates could follow, which I think was key to winning the best presentation award.”  Ross is about to start his fourth year of his MPhys course.

 

July 2011: SU2P Fellowships to Stanford University awarded to Heriot-Watt Researchers

Two Heriot-Watt researchers, Chandra Mouli Natarajan and Tobi Lamour, have been awarded prestigious entrepreneurial fellowships to spend one year at Stanford University in California, USA. The SU2P Science Bridges scheme is aimed at strengthening links between Scottish Universities and Stanford in photonics research. This field has produced scientific advances such as the laser, which have become ubiquitous in modern life.

Both Chandra and Tobi are from the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt. Chandra completed his PhD at Heriot-Watt under the supervision of Dr Robert Hadfield in spring 2011 and will join the group of Professor Yoshihisa Yamamoto to work on quantum memories which could be used to underpin future communication networks. Tobi Lamour is due to complete his PhD with Professor Derryck Reid in autumn 2011, and will join the group of Dr Konstantin Vodopyanov on the generation of light at Terahertz wavelengths using synchronously-pumped optical parametric oscillators. Chandra and Tobi will have the opportunity to return to Scotland at the end of the Fellowship to share their expertise.

The SU2P Science Bridges website: http://www.su2p.com/Home.aspx 

 

 

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