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，即当物理系统非常小且非常冷（与普朗克常数相比）时，量子力学效应往往会出现。然而，最近，由于技术允许我们使用激光冷却（非常冷）对单个原子（非常小）进行常规工作，我们对环境和所研究的系统之间的信息流动有了更好的理解。这揭示了热系统必然是非量子的预期中的一些漏洞。这个研究项目正在探索一些方法，好的控制耗散，一个潜在的热和典型的经典过程，可以帮助我们控制和使用量子系统进行测量和计算。为此，该小组将使用悬浮在真空室中的单个原子，并研究如何巧妙地利用像阳光直接照射在原子上的“热”物质将原子冷却到接近绝对零度，以用于量子信息应用，这将有助于我们推进科学理解并利用量子信息为更大的利益服务。随着实际应用中使用的量子设备的尺寸，复杂性和精度的增长，这些仪器越来越接近热力学和统一行为之间的模糊边界。在改进实用工具和更好地理解统计领域和量子领域之间的过渡方面，出现了双重挑战。该计划将利用具有长寿命亚稳态电子态（高度量子化子系统）的捕获原子离子与来自激光和热源（高度经典子系统）的经典光相互作用来探索这些挑战。这个项目将解决三个关键问题：1)能否通过利用更多可用的稳定原子水平资源来制造更强大的捕获原子处理器或传感器？2)在这样一个系统中，接近理想的投影零测量（pmms）如何启用新的处理原语？3)当这些量子测量通过将系统与热储（如太阳）接触而推向经典状态时，会发生什么？该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.