The Quantum Age: From Bell Pairs to Quantum Computers

The Quantum Age: From Bell Pairs to Quantum Computers

Vladan Vuletić, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Quantum mechanics has not one but two mysteries: the double-slit experiment and quantum correlations (entanglement) between two or more particles. Criticized by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”, entanglement is now seen as an essential part of the physical world, in part thanks to the recipients of the 2022 Nobel Prize. The Bell inequalities, introduced in 1964 to experimentally distinguish local hidden variable theories from quantum physics, have been confirmed to agree with quantum mechanics in the Nobel-Prize winning and many other experiments.

Building on entangled Bell pairs, the last few years have seen a remarkable development in our ability to control many neutral atoms individually, and induce controlled interactions between them on demand. This progress ushers in a new era where one can create highly entangled states of many particles, break certain limits for quantum sensors, or study quantum phase transitions. I will present results on quantum simulation with atomic arrays containing more than 250 atomic qubits. Finally, I will discuss prospects for near- and medium-term neutral-atom quantum computers with full quantum error correction.

Short biography

Professor Vladan Vuletić was born in Peć, Serbia (Yugoslavia), and educated in Germany. In 1992, he earned the Physics Diploma with highest honors from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and in 1997, a Ph.D. in Physics (summa cum laude) from the same institution under the supervision of Professor T.W. Haensch. He then went on to work with Professor Steven Chu at Stanford University as a Lynen Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation. (Steven Chu won the Nobel Prize in 1997, and Ted Haensch in 2005.) In 2000, Vuletić was appointed an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Stanford and in June 2003 accepted an Assistant Professorship in Physics at MIT. He was promoted to Associate Professor in July 2004, and to Full Professor in July 2011. Vuletić has published over 150 refereed articles. Awards include a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Fellowship of the APS, the Marko Jarić Prize of Serbia, and the Tesla Spirit Award. Research interests include ultracold atoms and laser cooling, quantum metrology, quantum simulation and quantum computing, and precision tests of physics beyond the Standard Model.

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