Happenings in the Quantum World, September 11, 2008

Robert Clark new chief defence scientist for Australian DSTO, Florida quantum computing conference, standard model quantum computing, and Ray Laflamme is Royal in Canada.

• Robert Clark, director of the Australia’s largest quantum computing effort, the Centre for Quantum Computer Technology, has been appointed Chief Defence Scientist for the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation (I think “Defence” is the Autralian way of saying “Defense”, but I can’t really defend the observation, nor can I ever condone the word “Centre.”)
• Conference SPIE Quantum Information and Computation VII in Orlando, FL. Combine a quantum computing conference with a trip to Disney World!
  

  Quantum Information and Computation VII (Conference DS214)
  Part of program track on Signal, Image, and Neural Net Processing
  Conference Chairs
  Eric J. Donkor, Univ. of Connecticut (United States); Andrew R. Pirich, ACP Consulting (United States); Howard E. Brandt, Army Research Lab. (United States)
  Program Committee
  Chip B. Elliott, BBN Technologies (United States); Michael J. Hayduk, Air Force Research Lab. (United States); Louis H. Kauffman, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago (United States); Vladimir E. Korepin, Stony Brook Univ. (United States); Samuel J. Lomonaco, Jr., Univ. of Maryland/Baltimore County (United States); John M. Myers, Harvard Univ. (United States); Vladimir Privman, Clarkson Univ. (United States); Alexander V. Sergienko, Boston Univ. (United States); Tai Tsun Wu, Harvard Univ. (United States)
  Post-Meeting Proceedings Manuscript Due Date: 16 March 2009
  Quantum systems that compute, store, and distribute information based on quantum mechanical entanglement, superposition, and interference phenomena are being developed and realized in many physical systems, with possible commercial/industrial applications in quantum cryptography, quantum communication, and quantum computation. Quantum cryptography exploits the non-cloning property of quantum states to implement secure cryptosystems, quantum communication exploits entanglement of quantum states for teleportation, and quantum computing utilizes the parallelism of quantum interference states for computational complexity and speed that exceed the capability of today’s digital technology. Non-locality principles can provide a basis for robust quantum networks that can detect and defend against malicious cyber attacks.
  Progress in quantum information and computing technologies requires interdisciplinary efforts from physicists, computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. This conference will provide a forum for discussion among theoreticians and experimentalists from these disciplines, and others with interest in quantum technologies. Papers that report on new developments and breakthroughs in quantum information science, quantum communication, quantum cryptography, and quantum computing are invited as well as papers that employ non-locality.
  Of particular interest are papers dealing with the following topics:
  Quantum Information Science:
  * quantum information theory
  * quantum measurement
  * decoherence effects
  * quantum complexity theory
  * quantum algorithms
  * quantum error correction
  * quantum memory and erasure.
  Quantum Communication and Cryptography:
  * quantum repeaters
  * entangled states and their creation
  * information processing with entangled states
  * teleportation
  * quantum cryptography and cryptosystems
  * QKD system architecture
  * QKD engineering.
  Quantum Computing:
  * solid state computing
  * ion-trap quantum computing
  * NMR quantum computing
  * neutral-atom quantum computing
  * Josephson junction quantum computing
  * photonic quantum computing
  * cavity-QED quantum computing
  * molecular quantum computing
  * fault-tolerant quantum computing
  * topological quantum computing.
  Homeland Defense:
  * secure communications
  * information sharing and secrecy
  * cyber attack countermeasures
  * quantum computer threat assessment.
  Quantum Systems and Sensors:
  * quantum architectural systems
  * quantum imaging systems
  * quantum sensors
  * quantum games.

• Everyday I learn something. For example, today I learned that the standard model gave birth to quantum computing. Whah? Yeah, that’s what an article in The Register said:
  

  The Standard Model has been to modern particle physics rather what the periodic table was to 19th century chemistry. It served both to organise the known entities systematically, and as an impetus to fill in the holes in our knowledge. The Standard Model can claim to have predicted the existence of several previously unexpected particles, which were subsequently discovered experimentally. Arguably, too, it has also seeded the separate field of quantum information theory, and quantum computing.

• Ray Laflamme, director of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, has been selected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. The citation reads:
  

  Raymond Laflamme has solved both practical and theoretical problems of fundamental importance to quantum information processing, and has been a leader in bringing Canada to international prominence in this field. He elucidated theoretical approaches to quantum error correction, which set the benchmark in this field, and gave the first experimental demonstrations of these techniques.