Department of Mathematics, Royal Holloway, University of London

The research conducted by the quantum dynamics group at Royal Holloway is focussed on two main directions. The first, quantum chaos, concerns the connection between the physics of the very large and the very small. This field is concerned with the study of the transition in the behaviour of small quantum systems as they become larger and more energetic, i.e., more "classical". Three of our members are actively working on understanding this mechanism, namely, Jens Bolte, Francisca Mota-Furtado, and Pat O'Mahony. The second direction investigated by the quantum dynamics group is aimed at explaining the information-theoretic properties of quantum mechanics: it has recently become clear that quantum mechanics allows the existence of many resource-like quantities which can be consumed to perform interesting new tasks. The properties of one of the most important such quantities, quantum entanglement, is the focus of the research of three of our members, namely, Koenraad Audenaert, Tobias Osborne, and Ruediger Schack. Related research on the theory of Bose-Einstein condensates is carried out by Andrew Ho in the Physics Dept.

Group members are in demand as speakers at international conferences. Koenraad Audeneart was recently invited to speak at the Advanced Workshop on Trends and Developments in Linear Algebra, 22 June - 10 July 2009, ICTP, Miramare - Trieste, Italy. Jens Bolte presented the opening lecture at “Quantum Graphs, their Spectra and Applications”, (Cambridge, 2007). Tobias Osborne was recently invited to speak at the Quantum Theory and Symmetries 6 conference held in Lexington, Kentucky. Ruediger Schack was invited to speak at the 8th Valencia International Meeting on Bayesian Statistics, (Alicante 2006) and was an invited participant at a Dagstuhl workshop on Quantum and Classical Information Assurance in 2009.

Primary Activity