Exploring Open Channel Operations with Atomic Qubits as A Processing and Measurement Resource

物理学家倾向于坚持一个广泛的概念，即量子力学效应往往出现在物理系统非常小和非常冷的时候(与被称为普朗克常数的东西相比)。然而，最近，由于技术允许我们常规地使用激光冷却(非常冷)来处理单个原子(非常小)，我们对环境和正在研究的系统之间的信息流动有了更好的理解。这暴露了热系统必然是非量子系统的预期中的一些漏洞。这个研究项目正在探索一些方法，良好控制的耗散，一个潜在的热门和典型的经典过程，可以帮助我们控制和使用量子系统进行测量和计算。为此，该小组将使用漂浮在真空室中的单个原子，并研究如何巧妙地利用阳光等“热”事物将原子冷却到接近绝对零度，用于量子信息应用，这将有助于我们加深对科学的理解，并利用量子信息实现更大的利益。随着实际应用中使用的量子设备的尺寸、复杂性和精确度的增长，这些仪器将进一步接近热力学和么正行为之间的模糊边界。改进实用工具和更好地理解统计和量子领域之间的过渡是一个双重挑战。这个项目将探索这些挑战，使用具有长寿命亚稳态电子状态的俘获原子离子(高度量子化的子系统)与来自激光和热源的经典光(高度经典的子系统)相互作用。这个项目将解决三个关键问题：1)通过利用可用的稳定原子能级的更大资源，能否创建更强大的囚禁原子处理器或传感器？2)在这样的系统中，近乎理想的射影零点测量(PNM)如何能够实现新的处理基元？3)当这些量子测量通过使系统与太阳等炎热的热库接触而被推向经典区域时会发生什么？这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Physicists tend to adhere to a broad notion that quantum mechanical effects tend to appear when physical systems are very small and very cold (compared to something called Planck’s constant). More recently, however, as technology has allowed us to routinely work with individual atoms (very small) using laser cooling (very cold), we have a better understanding of how information flows between the environment and the system under study. This has revealed some loopholes in the expectation that hot systems are necessarily non-quantum. This research program is exploring some of the ways that well-controlled dissipation, a potentially hot and typically classical process, can help us to control and use quantum systems for measurement and computation. For this, the group will use a single atom levitated in a vacuum chamber and study how "hot" things like sunlight shining directly on the atom can be cleverly employed to cool the atom to nearly absolute zero for quantum information applications that will help us advance scientific understanding and harness quantum information for the greater good.As the size, complexity, and precision of quantum devices employed in practical applications grows, these instruments push closer to the fuzzy boundary between thermodynamic and unitary behavior. A dual challenge arises to improve practical instruments and better understand the transition between the statistical and quantum realms. This program will explore these challenges using trapped atomic ions with long-lived metastable electronic states (a highly quantized subsystem) interacting with classical light from lasers and thermal sources (a highly classical subsystem). This project will address three key questions: 1) Can more powerful trapped atom processors or sensors be created by tapping into the larger resource of available stable atomic levels? 2) How can the nearly ideal projective null measurements (PNMs) in such a system enable new processing primitives? and 3) What happens when these quantum measurements are pushed toward the classical regime by bringing the system into contact with a hot, thermal reservoir such as the sun?This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.