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Quantum Information
"Physics is information"
Information theory is ubiquitous in the modern digital world. At a microscopic level information is encoded into binary digits by some physical means. Since quantum physics underpins our modern understanding of nature, it follows that information is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.
This leads to the rich fields of quantum information theory, quantum computation, and quantum complexity theory. In
my research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory I study the ways that quantum entanglement can be used to improve computing and metrological sensing precision. Using quantum coding techniques I, along with my collaborators at ORNL, have recently shown how direct characterization of quantum dynamics can be applied to situations when both the principal and ancilla systems undergo noisy processes.
Topological Order
From a modern quantum field theory perspective, matter is comprised of small packets of energy which are stored in a field. These ripples in a field also go by the name of particles, and one example is photons in the electromagnetic field. The standard model provides a (more or less) complete understanding of the fundamental particles and fields which make up our universe. However in many body phases of matter such as solids, this picture is modified. Instead of creating fundamental particles energy is store in emergent quasiparticles which can be understood as collective motions of the many particles. As simple example see phonons in a metal or even waves at the beach.
In topologically ordered phases of matter strange non-local quasiparticles appear. In these states, the particles relative positions to one another determine the ground state wavefunction! Since the quantum many body state is invariant under perturbations such as variations in the particle positions the state is considered to be a topological degree of freedom.
Such a system would be ideally suited to encode quantum information which is notoriously hard to control in all current experiments.
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