Gordon Godfrey Theoretical Seminars 2006
Quantum
phase transitions in an ion trap quantum computer.
Prof.
Gerard J. Milburn
University of Queensland
Date
12 pm, Tuesday, 21 February, 2006
School of Physics,
Room 31
ABSTRACT:
Building on more than 20 years of development, ion traps are the leading
experimental context for implementing quantum information processing.
These systems now offer a technology capable of exquisite control over
quantum coherence in multi component systems. At the end of 2005 experimentalists
in Austria and the US demonstrated an entangled electronic state of
up to 8 independent ions cooled to the ground state of a collective
vibrational mode. In this talk I will explain the physics of these systems
and review current status. I will then show how these systems can be
used to implement text book examples of quantum phase transitions in
many body systems.Measurements of atomic parity violation provide important
cross-tests of the standard model of electroweak interactions by probing
these interactions in the domain of low energies. The effects of parity
nonconservation in atoms, both dependent and not dependent on nuclear
spin, have been successfully measured in experiments. The existence
of permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of a quantum particle requires
that the fundamental parity (P) and time-reversal (T) symmetries are
violated. By the CPT theorem, this would also mean the violation of
combined CP (charge conjugation-parity) symmetry. Studies of T and CP
violation in nature provide valuable information for theories of baryogenesis,
and for understanding of fundamental interactions in general.
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