A quantum runner runs twice as fast as a classical one

Communication requires to embody information into a physical system, the so-called information carrier. Classically, the information carrier can only travel from a sender to the receiver, resulting in a “one-way” communication. Theoretical physicists…

2017 Paul Ehrenfest Best Paper Award for Quantum Foundations

Call for Award Nomination

Entangled qubits are sent to measurement devices which output a sequence of zeroes and ones. This pattern heavily depends on the type of measurements performed on individual qubits. If we pick the set of measurements in a peculiar way, entanglement will leave unique fingerprints in the measurement patterns. © Juan Palomino

Fingerprints of quantum entanglement

Quantum entanglement is a key feature of a quantum computer. Yet, how can we verify that a quantum computer indeed incorporates a large-scale entanglement? Using conventional methods is hard since they require a large number of repeated measurements.…

Quantum experiments as an ideal test field for artificial intelligence

Some months ago, Mario Krenn, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues at the IQOQI and at the University of Vienna developed the algorithm Melvin, which can automatically design new quantum experiments for which the human scientists had no answer until then…

Secure quantum communication over 7,600 kilometers

In a newly released publication in the science journal Physical Review Letters, researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vienna and the Chinese Academy of Sciences describe how they prepared and carried out the world's…

Hidden bridge between Quantum Experiments and Graph Theory uncovered using Melvin

An answer to a quantum-physical question provided by the algorithm Melvin has uncovered a hidden link between quantum experiments and the mathematical field of Graph Theory. Researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of…

Do “Schrödinger cat-states” occur naturally

Creating macroscopic superpositions in the laboratory is possible with the help of sophisticated quantum devices, such as universal quantum computers. An interesting question remains. Do truly macroscopic superpositions occur naturally, as states…

Ehrenfest Award Ceremony 2016

The Paul Ehrenfest Best Paper Award was created in 2015 with the aim to promote recent advances in the field of quantum foundations. The winner of the 2016 Best Paper Award is the paper

Forscher entwerfen Datenbus für Quantencomputer

Die Quantenwelt ist sehr fragil. Fehlerkorrekturcodes helfen, Quanteninformation vor Störungen zu schützen. In Zusammenarbeit mit Innsbrucker Quantenphysikern hat Nicolai Friis aus der Forschungsgruppe Huber vom IQOQI Wien ein Verfahren entwickelt,…

Towards complete control of multi-level quantum systems

Scientists from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences have developed a new technique to transform high-dimensional quantum states. For the polarization of photons – a two-dimensional degree-of-freedom – it has been long known…