About QUINST

Quantum mechanics is at the heart of our technology and economy - the laser and the transistor are quantum devices - but its full potential is far from being realized. Recent technological advances in optics, nanoscience and engineering allow experimentalists to create artificial structures or put microscopic and mesoscopic systems under new manipulable conditions in which quantum phenomena play a fundamental role.

Quantum technologies exploit these effects with practical purposes. The objective of Quantum Science is to discover, study, and control quantum efects at a fundamental level. These are two sides of a virtuous circle: new technologies lead to the discovery and study of new phenomena that will lead to new technologies.

Our aim is  to control and understand quantum phenomena in a multidisciplinary intersection of  Quantum Information, Quantum optics and cold atoms, Quantum Control, Spintronics, Quantum metrology, Atom interferometry, Superconducting qubits and Circuit QED and Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.

QUINST is funded in part as a “Grupo Consolidado” from the Basque Government (IT472-10, IT986-16, IT1470-22)  and functions as a network of groups with their own funding, structure, and specific goals.  

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Latest events

Seminar Seminar

Rene Gerritsma (Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Innsbruck, Austria)

When and where

From: 11/2010 To: 11/2016

Description

2009/12/10, Rene Gerritsma (Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Innsbruck, Austria)

Place: Sala de Seminarios del Departamento de Física Teórica e Historia de la Ciencia
Time: 12h.
Title: Quantum simulation of the Dirac equation with a single trapped ion


Abstract
Crystals of trapped ions form an ideal system for studying fundamental questions in quantum information science. Over recent years special interest has grown in using trapped ions to simulate other quantum mechanical systems that are not readily accessible in experiments. In a recent experiment we simulated the 1+1 dimensional Dirac equation using a single trapped ion (Lamata et al., PRL 98, 253005 (2007)). Straight-forward adjustment of experimental parameters makes it possible to simulate both mass-less and massive free particles in the relativistic and classical limits. We observe Zitterbewegung in the simulated particle motion and investigate various parameter regimes. The high level of control of experimental parameters and in initial state preparation makes it possible to simulate elegant textbook examples of relativistic quantum physics. To study the dynamics, we use new methods to extract observables such as the
particles position and its spatial probability distribution.