Quantum Sensors sans Frontier

Physics Colloquium 10th June 2016 delivered by Professor Swapan Chattopadhyay Tremendous advances have been made in the last two decades in precision ‘Quantum’ technologies and techniques in multiple disciplines e.g. cavity electrodynamics, atomic beam interferometry, SQUIDS, quantum optical “squeezed state” techniques for noise-free single photon detection, qubit-based quantum entanglement techniques, high-Q superconducting cavities, precision NMR detection via designer materials, etc. These advances promise to enable transformational research using ultra-sensitive probes to explore very “weak effects” on a laboratory scale. These weak effects are manifest everywhere in nature in material and living systems from the laboratory to outer space. Potential “mezzo-scale” experiments and facilities can be envisaged using “quantum sensors” to search for ultra-weak physical, chemical or biological signals of fundamental significance to the material and living world around us as well as explore the “inner” and “outer” dimension of “vacuum” believed to be manifest in the so-called “dark” universe. This talk will illustrate this potential via a few exciting examples discussed at the recent US DOE Round Table on Quantum Sensors in February 2016. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

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The Department of Physics public lecture series. An exciting series of lectures about the research at Oxford Physics take place throughout the academic year. Looking at topics diverse as the creation of the universe to the science of climate change. Features episodes previously published as: (1) 'Oxford Physics Alumni': "Informal interviews with physics alumni at events, lectures and other alumni related activities." (2) 'Physics and Philosophy: Arguments, Experiments and a Few Things in Between': "A series which explores some of the links between physics and philosophy, two of the most fundamental ways with which we try to answer our questions about the world around us. A number of the most pertinent topics which bridge the disciplines are discussed - the nature of space and time, the unpredictable results of quantum mechanics and their surprising consequences and perhaps most fundamentally, the nature of the mind and how far science can go towards explaining and understanding it. Featuring interviews with Dr. Christopher Palmer, Prof. Frank Arntzenius, Prof. Vlatko Vedral, Dr. David Wallace and Prof. Roger Penrose."