Dr Madalin Guta, in the School's Mathematical Physics Research Group, has published a paper in the renowned journal 'Nature Communications' with collaborators from the University of Warsaw.
The research deals with so-called 'quantum rulers', a theoretical measuring device made up of artificially-arranged photons of light. Alongside atomic clocks and atomic force microscopy, quantum metrology (measurement) has the potential to revolutionise our view and use of the unseen sub-atomic world. Until now, the extent to which quantum rulers may actually be useful, i.e. a limit on what their precision might be in experimental conditions, has been unknown. This paper has outlined for the first time tools that make it possible to determine what this limit is and thus to compare current experimental achievements with theoretic predictions. The result of these findings have many implications, not least of all in the detection of gravitational waves - the exact nature of gravity being one of the great challenges still to be solved.
Publication
R. Demkowicz-Dobrzanski, J. Kolodynski & M. Guta, The elusive Heisenberg limit in quantum-enhanced metrology, Nature Communications 3, 1063 (2012)
Posted on Monday 5th November 2012