Quantiki

The Canadian Quantum Information Summer School has become an annual Canadian tradition and welcomes students from all over the world. The Eighth installment aims to introduce the participants to quantum algorithms, quantum error correction, quantum information theory and quantum cryptography. They will also receive lectures on implementations, quantum complexity theory, nonlocality and some more recent developments in quantum algorithms, namely quantum walks.

The Summer School is being held at the Université de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from June 9 to 13, 2008.

One of the problems plaguing classical communication is associated with what is known as the Byzantine agreement. In this problem, messages between three different parties are subject to faulty information. Quantum communication, though, has held the promise of solving this dilemma. But until now, it has been difficult to do so, even using entangled states.

An atomic clock that uses an aluminium atom to apply the logic of computers to the peculiarities of the quantum world now rivals the world's most accurate clock, based on a single mercury atom. Both clocks are at least 10 times more accurate than the current U.S. time standard.

Recently, quantum computing has been heralded as the new cool kid on the block. The point of quantum computing is that, during a calculation, the bits (called qubits) that are being manipulated are never in a definite one or zero state. Instead, they can be thought of as being both a one and a zero simultaneously, which allows a quantum computer to explore many solutions at the same time. The upshot is that, for a limited set of problems, quantum computers may offer a substantial speed up over normal computers.

Researchers have succeeded in building diodes that manipulate heat, which paves the way for thermal transistors and logic. Lei Wang and Baowen Li describe the emerging field of “phononics”.

MagiQ Technologies, Inc., the quantum information processing (QIP) company announced success of their 3 year joint venture program. The Quantum Communications Victoria (QCV) joint venture has produced the world’s first commercial source of single photons (single particles of light), which are a crucial component of quantum communication systems. MagiQ will collaborate in development and will participate in the sales and marketing of these new products.

Imagine two of your friends tell you – independently - about an agreement for a next meeting. Each of them however mentions a different meeting point. How do you find out who is the liar? And how can you finally succeed to meet at least the honest one at the right time and place?

Forty years ago, mathematician Marek Kac asked the theoretical question, "Can one hear the shape of a drum?". Hari Manoharan from Stanford Physics Faculty investigated with his students the drum question in the quantum realm, where it could have an effect on real nano-electronic systems.

Physical Review Letters celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year. A number of famous PRL papers from the past half century are being made available on the following website.