Two excellent talks on the nature of the quantum world

[Chris Hammel]

Prof. Paul Kwiat, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign, will be giving two talks next week that maybe of interest to you. Prof. Kwiat was the student-elected Colloquium speaker here a couple of years ago. He is an engaging speaker; his Colloquium was enjoyed by many and I expect his talks next week will be as well.

Prof. Kwiat will speak at the Science Sundays lecture on Sunday December 8 at 3:00 PM in the Ohio Union U.S. Bank Conference Theatre.

He will speak again at the Physics Condensed Matter Theory Seminar on Monday December 9 at 11:30 AM.

Abstract for the Science Sundays talk:
"The Quantum Information Revolution"
More than a century after Einstein's revolutionary suggestion that light is composed of particles, the quantum information revolution seeks to use the almost magical properties of nonclassical physics to enable new feats in information processing that would be difficult or impossible without the quantum advantage. Kwiat, Bardeen Chair in Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America, will discuss how quantum randomness, superposition, and entanglement can be used to realize perfectly secure cryptography, ultra-fast computation, and completely non-invasive photography. Time/appetites permitting, Kwiat may also give a brief lesson in Quantum Cooking.

Abstract for the CMT Seminar:
"The End of Local Realism"
Ever since John Bell showed that quantum mechanics could give different predictions from a local realistic model in an appropriate experiment, there has been wide interest in carrying out such a test.  Unfortunately, to date no truly unambiguous test has ever been completed, due to the existence of two experimental loopholes: the "locality loophole" and the "detection loophole".  Each of these has been closed individually in different experimental systems - photons, atoms, ions, and superconductors - but no system has simultaneously closed each of the loopholes.  Here we present a photon-based experiment that violates the Bell inequality, free of the detection loophole. We also discuss some rather subtle points in performing such an experiment, to ensure that new loopholes do not arise.  Our experiment has some "efficiency overhead", but in its current form probably insufficient to perform a fully loophole-free test of local realism, which requires much larger separations between source and detectors. We discuss possible improvements, as well as the application to device-independent quantum communication, e.g., certified private random number generation. Time permitting, our efforts to turn undergraduates into Schrödinger cats will be discussed.

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