The violation of the discrete symmetries of charge conjugation (C), parity inversion (P), and time reversal (T) observed in high energy physics are fundamental aspects of nature. A new quantum theory [1,2] has been introduced to explore the possibility of their large-scale physical consequences. The new theory does not assume any conservation laws or equations of motion at the outset. In...
Polaron quasiparticles—impurities interacting with a quantum medium—represent one of the earliest and most fundamental topics in condensed matter physics. A key feature of polaron physics is the interplay between few-body and many-body effects. In strongly interacting regimes where mean-field and perturbative methods often fail, polaron systems offer a unique opportunity for exact treatment:...
High-temperature superconductivity and topological phase transition are among the most debated and intriguing phenomena in modern condensed matter physics. Their combined manifestation in either a single or hybrid material structure is of great interest for exhibiting Majorana zero modes. So far, the study of topological materials and the role of electron-phonon coupling in superconductivity...
Motivated by the recently discovered superconductivity in boron-doped Sn/Si(111) with a Tc as high as 10K [1], I will focus on unconventional superconductivity of correlated electrons on the triangular lattice. I will further demonstrate the significance of Rashba spin-orbit couling for materials such as Sn/Si(111) and show that, as a consequence, the superconducting phase possesses a...
Gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions offer a novel probe of particle physics. As the early universe cooled, it may have undergone a phase transition from a metastable vacuum to the true vacuum. While the Standard Model of particle physics predicts continuous phase transitions during electroweak and QCD symmetry breaking, many extensions of the Standard Model predict...
I will discuss how to utilize highly controllable quantum dynamics to study correlations in quantum many-body systems, particularly the strong correlations of quantum critical states. I will discuss two theories of non-hermitian linear response and the finite-size scaling theory of the Kibble-Zurek dynamics, and I will talk about their recent experimental realizations in cold atom systems.
The Strong CP Problem can be solved elegantly and economically by introducing a spontaneously broken, anomalous, global Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry, whose Goldstone boson - the axion - dynamically cancels out the CP-violating phase. However, the global-symmetry-breaking corrections expected to arise from quantum gravity can threaten this perfect cancellation, and need to be either enormously...
Atom interferometry has emerged as a powerful tool for precision inertial sensing, with applications ranging from gravimetry to navigation and geophysics. In this talk, I will explore recent advances that push the boundaries of sensitivity and robustness in atom interferometers, with a particular focus on techniques relevant for real-world deployment.
A central theme will be the use of...
Flat bands with narrow energy dispersion can give rise to strongly correlated electronic and topological phases, especially when located at the Fermi level. Whilst flat bands have been experimentally realized in two-dimensional (2D) twisted van der Waals heterostructures, they are highly sensitive to twist angle, necessitating complex fabrication techniques. Geometrically frustrated kagome...
Shannon theory has been a very useful tool for studying quantum field theories with an ultraviolet cutoff as simultaneously continuous and discrete on a lattice. Recently this has been extended to fields without a cutoff using wavelets, presenting free (continuous) quantum fields in n dimensions as equivalent discrete lattice theories in n+1 dimensions with potentially holographic properties....
Quantum droplets are self-bound low-density configurations which may appear in ultracold gases with competing interactions. Dilute bosonic mixtures, where the attractive mean-field energy is balanced by the repulsive Lee-Huang-Yang correction stemming from quantum fluctuations, are the prototypical platform where this novel state has been first predicted [1] and shortly after experimentally...
I will discuss topological magnetic textures, such as skyrmions, merons, and (anti)bimerons, which constitute tiny chiral whirls in the magnetic order. They are promising candidates as information carriers for next generation electronics, as they can be efficiently propelled at very high velocities employing current-induced spin torques [1]. First, I will talk about bimerons [2] and...
According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, photons—though massless—are influenced by gravitational fields because gravity acts not as a force in the Newtonian sense but as a manifestation of spacetime curvature. In this framework, a photon follows a null geodesic, meaning its path bends when passing near massive objects due to the warping of spacetime. This leads to several key...
We investigate the fundamental problem of a small density of bosonic impurities immersed in a dilute Bose gas at zero temperature. Using a rigorous perturbative expansion, we show that the presence of the surrounding medium enhances the repulsion between dressed bosonic impurities (polarons) in the regime of weak interactions. Crucially, this differs from prevailing theories based on Landau...
Nuclear fusion not only promises carbon-free energy but also drives deeper insights into fundamental quantum dynamics under extreme conditions. Non-relativistic quantum scattering theory informs our broad understanding of nuclear collision processes. However, detailed theoretical insights remain elusive with conventional approaches.
In this work, we investigate a new time-dependent...
Nonlocal entanglement between pair-correlated particles is a highly counter-intuitive aspect of quantum mechanics. While the rigorous Bell’s inequality framework has enabled the demonstration of such entanglement in photons and atomic internal states, no experiment has yet involved motional states of massive particles. Here we report the experimental observation of Bell correlations in...
Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is a powerful local probe of correlated electronic states. We introduce a group-theoretical framework for STM analysis that decomposes images into components corresponding to irreducible representations of the local density of states, providing a real-space map of symmetry properties. This decomposition enables the direct detection of spatial...
We present a systematic investigation of the possible phenomenological impact of residual, abelian flavour groups in the charged lepton sector. The allowed flavour structures of operators in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (up to dimension six) lead to distinctive and observable patterns of charged lepton flavour violating processes. We illustrate the relevance of such selection...
We introduce a method of reverse holography by which a bulk metric is shown to arise from locally computable multiscale correlations of a boundary quantum field theory (QFT). The metric is obtained from the Petz-Rényi mutual information defined with input correlations computed from the continuous wavelet transform. We show for free massless fermionic and bosonic QFTs that the emerging metric...
Edge states are excitations in many-body systems that are spatially localised at the boundary. They exhibit desirable properties such as dissipationless transport and robustness against disorder. These features make them central to phenomena like the quantum Hall effect and topological insulators.
In a rotating planar Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs), the ground state forms a triangular...
I will discuss our recent work on various ferroelectric and multiferroic oxide material systems using scanning probe microscopy (SPM) as the main investigative tool, with a focus on nanoscale functional property measurements of individual topological defects and new SPM instrument capability developments.
The nanoscale phonon properties of BiFeO₃ structural variants have rarely been...
Baryon number violating (BNV) nucleon decays can serve as an interesting probe to physics beyond the Standard Model, especially in upcoming experiments with increased sensitivity. We investigate such decays using effective field theories and present relevant BNV operators at leading order in a low energy effective field theory framework extended with a light scalar. We derive current...
Widefield defect microscopy is an emerging technology that provides spatially resolved quantitative maps of useful quantities, foremost of magnetic fields. These microscopes use color center spins in a crystalline host, which are controlled and measured optically to detect perturbations caused by fields in a proximal sample. Initial excitement around the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in...
A transducer capable of converting quantum states from the microwave domain to the optical domain would greatly enhance the capabilities of superconducting qubits. The long-distance transmission capabilities permitted in the optical domain would allow distributed computing, paving the way for a worldwide quantum internet.
One approach to building a quantum transducer exploits the spatially...
Matter consists of particles and waves. Every day we interact with particles while essentially disregarding waves. Quantum mechanics mathematically describe matter from the waves’ perspective while disregarding particles. This description does not reflect our everyday experience with matter.
The double slit experiment shows that electrons inherently have wave properties. Quantum...
Many recent investigations conclude, based on asymptotic complexity analyses, that quantum computers could accelerate combinatorial optimization (CO) tasks relative to a purely classical
computer. However, asymptotic analysis alone cannot support a credible claim of quantum advantage. Here, we highlight the challenges involved in benchmarking quantum and classical heuristics...
Quantum gravity seeks to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity into a coherent framework, addressing fundamental questions about space-time at the Planck scale. This pursuit has inspired diverse theoretical approaches, including string theory, loop quantum gravity, causal dynamical triangulations, and emergent space-time models, each predicting distinct phenomenological signatures. On...
Transmission of entangled photons through optical fiber underpins quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum computing, and the quantum internet. However, polarization mode dispersion (PMD) remains a key obstacle to distributing polarization-entangled photons over deployed fiber, especially for broadband sources where wavelength-dependent polarization rotation accumulates into measurement...
Parity nonconservation (PNC) in atoms is a tiny weak interaction effect,
arising largely from Z-boson exchange between atomic electrons and neutrons. This has been a rich area of study for the past few decades with the weak charge measured with up to a fraction of a percent precision, and the nuclear anapole moment experimentally observed once, with an uncertainty approaching 10%. Of recent...
Multimodal learning, which integrates heterogeneous data modalities including text, vision, and sensor signals, has made remarkable progress. Yet, effectively capturing complex relationships across modalities remains a challenge, especially in settings with numerous input streams. Existing methods often restrict these interactions to remain computationally tractable: tensor-based models...
Understanding interaction-driven phenomena in nanoscale quantum systems far from equilibrium is essential for describing how spatially separated quantum systems entangle and exchange energy, momentum, and information. In this work, we investigate Coulomb drag and nonequilibrium dispersion forces between two interacting quantum dots, each connected in parallel to its own macroscopic leads....
Electrocatalytic glycerol oxidation reaction (GOR) has emerged as a sustainable and energy-efficient alternative to the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), offering the dual benefit of hydrogen (H₂) generation and selective upgrading of biomass-derived glycerol into value-added chemicals like formate. However, the development of cost-effective, active, and stable electrocatalysts for GOR at low...
We claim that quantum collapse, as per the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, follows naturally from the energetics of measurement. We argue that a realistic device generates an interaction energy that drives a random walk in Hilbert space and generates the probabilistic interpretation of Born.
This work characterises families of guiding states for the Guided Local Hamiltonian problem, revealing new connections between physical constraints and computational complexity.
Focusing on states motivated by Quantum Chemistry and Hamiltonian Complexity, we extend prior BQP-hardness results beyond semi-classical subset states by demonstrating that broader state families preserve...
We investigate the density classification task DCT —determining the majority bit in a one-dimensional binary lattice—within the quantum cellular automata framework. While classical cellular automata constrained by locality, homogeneity, and irreversible rules, cannot solve the DCT perfectly, we explore whether a unitary quantum model can succeed. Specifically, we employ the Partitioned Unitary...
Corrosion is a pervasive issue that impacts the structural integrity and performance of materials across various industries, imposing a significant economic impact globally. In fields like aerospace and defense, developing corrosion-resistant materials is critical, but progress is often hindered by the complexities of material-environment interactions. While computational methods have advanced...
Time optimal control theory is a new and emergent branch of physics that seeks to modify the dynamic operators encoding the time evolution of the system in order to achieve optimised transitions between input and output states. Recent progress in the analysis of the hyperbolic brachistochrone equation using this method has uncovered a link to the Fubini-Study metric, an important object in the...
Rare-earth (RE) doped materials have emerged as promising candidates for photonic and optoelectronic applications due to their outstanding luminescent properties. Among these, lanthanide-activated phosphate-based phosphors stand out for their unique combination of mechanical, optical, electrical, magnetic and chemical characteristics, alongside their eco-friendliness, cost-effectiveness and...
Unsupervised machine learning, specifically self-organizing maps with relational perspective mapping (SOM-RPM), is a practical tool for thoughtful and considered analysis of complex hyperspectral data sets. The SOM-RPM approach treats each pixel in a hyperspectral image as a sample, clustering spectra based on similarity. This method creates a colour-coded similarity map in which changes in...
Precise control of quantum states is a key requirement for the development of quantum-based technologies. Engineering point defects in low-dimensional materials provides a promising approach to achieving this control, as strong in-plane coupling can accelerate quantum gate operations while mitigating decoherence. Hexagonally layered beryllium oxide (h-BeO) is a recently synthesised...
Band crossings in electronic band structures play an important role in determining the electronic, topological, and transport properties in solid-state systems, making them central to both condensed matter physics and materials science. The emergence of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) processors has sparked great interest in developing quantum algorithms to compute band structure...
This study presents a simplistic way to synthesize LiSr(1-x)VO4: xMn2+ nanophosphors with 0.25 ≤x ≤3.0 mol% by using combustion method. The structural, spectral and optical properties were examined using XRD, UV-Vis spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive Analysis of X-rays (EDAX), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The...
This article introduces a novel technique for mitigating longitudinal elastic waves in one-dimensional (1D) composite structures by utilizing inerter-based vibration absorbers paired with multifrequency resonators (MFRs). The proposed 1D resonant structure features an array of regularly spaced inerter-based absorbers embedded along an isotropic 1D framework. Each absorber is equipped with a...
After decades of not finding dark matter, we've gotten creative.
While liquid xenon detectors lead the direct search for 10-1000 GeV dark matter, sub-GeV dark matter particles from the local halo cannot transfer enough energy through nuclear scattering to be detected.
Blazars offer a solution. These supermassive black holes emit powerful particle jets directly toward Earth, and when...
Over the past decade, the discovery of topological quantum matter—such as topological insulators, Weyl semimetals, and topological superconductors—has transformed condensed matter physics. Remarkably, many of these concepts are not confined to electrons in solids, but also apply to classical waves, from light and sound to water ripples and plasma oscillations.
In this talk, I will show how...
The existence of two-γ-phonon excited states in rare-earth nuclei remains a contentious issue in nuclear structure. While examples of single-phonon γ-vibrational states are prevalent in even-even deformed nuclei, identifying two-phonon excitations is challenging due to strength fragmentation and competing non-collective states. Although two-phonon states are predicted by the collective model...
Superconducting electronics are one of the best understood and most promising platforms for realising quantum information processing. Unfortunately they suffer from the presence of defects and imperfections. These include uncontrolled two-level systems, which reside in the materials used to construct them. These defects can lead to loss of energy, coherence, device aging and imperfect control...
The calcium ($Z = 20$) nuclides have long been considered as “textbook” shell-model nuclei, with established doubly magic isotopes at $N = 20,~28$ and proposed shell gaps emerging at $N = 32,~34$. Despite this, a growing body of evidence suggests that the shell model requires deeper investigation in this region. In $^{48}$Ca, a reduction of the $f_{7/2}$ strength across the $N = 28$ shell gap...
The interplay between topology and magnetism in quantum materials gives rise to novel quantum phases, characterized by topologically protected surface states with non-trivial electronic band structures and complex spin textures. One of the most compelling outcomes of this interplay is the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE)¹, where a single chiral edge mode enables dissipationless electron...
The cosmic web is a vast large-scale network of interconnected filaments, clusters, and sheet-like walls surrounding voids that compose our Universe. The cosmic web is pivotal in galaxy formation and evolution, as studies have demonstrated a connection between the large-scale cosmic environment of a galaxy and its observed properties.
Caustic Skeleton (CS) theory offers a promising new...
We present an analytical study of the ground-state phase digram of dilute two-dimensional spin-1/2 Fermi gases exhibiting d-wave altermagnetic spin splitting under s-wave pairing. Within the Bogoliubov-de Gennes mean-field framework, four distinct phases are identified: a Bardeen-Scheriffer-Cooper-type superfluidity, a normal metallic phase, a nodal superfluidity with topological...
Cloud-based quantum computing is transforming how sensitive algorithms are executed, enabling remote access to shared hardware—but also introducing new risks of device impersonation and unauthorized access. We present a hardware-intrinsic authentication scheme based on Quantum Physical Unclonable Functions (Q-PUFs), which exploit fabrication-induced variations in quantum devices to create...
In this talk, I’ll explore how theoretical modelling—particularly N-body simulations and semi-analytic approaches—can shed light on the nature of dark matter and the formation of cosmic structure. I’ll highlight recent work on modelling classes of dark matter beyond ΛCDM, discuss approximate schemes that are especially useful for interpreting cosmological surveys, and examine how extended...
Comparison between large-basis shell-model calculations and experimental data gives insights into the emergence of nuclear collectivity. One experimental observable that can be examined is the $g$ factor, which gives a sensitive test of the proton versus neutron character of the nuclear states. There are extensive data on the first-excited states of even-even nuclei measured by the...
Singlet fission (SF) is an electronic transition that in the last decade has been under the spotlight for its applications in optoelectronics, from photovoltaics to spintronics. Despite considerable experimental and theoretical advancements, optimizing SF in materials like multichromophoric systems and molecular crystals remains a challenge, due to the complexity of its analysis beyond...
Classical simulations of noisy quantum circuits is instrumental to our understanding of the behavior of real world quantum systems and the identification of regimes where one expects quantum advantage. The presence of noise can decay quantum entanglement. Our work capitalizes on this idea. We employ new methods that push the boundaries of noise-induced entanglement decay, using it to...
Critical phenomena at finite temperature underpin a broad range of physical systems, yet their
study remains challenging due to computational bottlenecks near phase transitions. Quantum annealers have attracted significant interest as a potential tool for accessing finite temperature criticality beyond classical reach, but their utility in precisely resolving criticality has remained limited...
Simulations of radiation and particle transport via Monte Carlo (MC) codes are integral to the design and safety of nuclear reactors, medical radiation systems and detector systems. A lesser known application of these simulations is in defence and national security, where such tools can provide crucial information for threat assessments and analysis of real world detector readings. These...
The spatial and velocity distributions of dark matter in the local environment are a crucial input to searches for particle dark matter, for both direct experiments based on Earth, and astronomical observations of the galactic centre. Despite this, there are considerable uncertainties that directly impact the current and future sensitivity to particle dark matter signals. I will summarise what...
Simulating chaotic systems is difficult, due to randomness from divergent sensitivity to system parameters, and the same holds for quantum chaos—often understood as dynamics in quantum systems that exhibit classical chaos in a large-system limit. Yet in quantum technologies, quantum chaos also arises in systems which do not possess any straightforward classical limit. For example, quantum...
Topological insulators (TIs) are a class of materials that hosts insulating bulk states and topologically protected metallic surface states, arising from strong spin-orbit coupling and time-reversal symmetry1,2. When time-reversal symmetry is broken—such as by introducing magnetism—these surface states can become gapped, giving rise to novel quantum phases like quantum anomalous Hall effect...
We experimentally realise the theoretical proposal for in-situ tunable photonic edge states emerging from qubits coupled to a waveguide with a photonic bandgap. These edge-states are directional, exhibiting theoretically zero population in the opposite direction. Our experiment implements a tunable Rice-Mele waveguide configuration, where the directionality of edge states is controlled in-situ...
Quantum technology is expected to have revolutionary impact on different areas including computation, communication, and sensing. The first step in any quantum application is state preparation, where it is required to transfer the system from a fixed initial state to a final target state. This task can be challenging to perform, especially in non-Markovian open quantum systems. Invariant-based...
Noise characterisation is a critical bottleneck in scaling quantum technologies. While uncorrelated errors are relatively well understood, correlated or non-Markovian noise, where memory effects persist across multiple operations remains far harder to capture. This non-Markovian noise has been detected in state-of-the-art quantum devices like those of IBM and Google. However, standard...
Venus at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths exhibits distinct light and dark markings (Rossow et al., 1980). The discovery of sulfur dioxide ($SO_2$) using a ground-based high resolution spectrometer explained Venus’ albedo at wavelengths < 320 nm but not these dark markings at 320-500 nm (Esposito et al., 1979; Pollack et al.; 1980, Pérez-Hoyos et al., 2018). So at least one other absorber must be...
Quantum simulation of molecular Hamiltonians represents one of the most promising applications of quantum computing. At the heart of most quantum simulation algorithms lies the fundamental challenge of decomposing the evolution operator $e^{-iHt}$ for a composite Hamiltonian $H = X + Y$ into a sequence of implementable quantum gates. Product formulae, also known as Trotter-Suzuki...
This study examines the practical application of Newton's second law (F=ma) by systematically analyzing the effects of resistance forces in real-world systems. Through controlled experiments using calibrated weighing scales, we measure frictional variations (1.44-1.80N across surfaces with μ=0.1-0.7) and air resistance (0.24-0.37N) to develop an enhanced force equation (F=ma+r) that...
The strong interaction binds up and down quarks together to form hadrons such as protons and neutrons and heavier states containing strange or charm quarks. At low energies, hadron properties cannot be determined via analytic or perturbative approaches to quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Instead, we make use of a numerical approach to QCD known as lattice QCD (LQCD). In this work, we calculate...
Turbulence is one of the most elusive topics in physics that remains to be solved. Superfluid helium is a strongly interacting quantum fluid—characterised by a vanishing viscosity—and has been a vastly successful platform in furthering our understanding of turbulent flows in recent years [1]. The dynamics of quantised vortices play an essential role in the classical-to-quantum transition of...
The measured orbital velocity distributions of stars in galaxies and the observed gravitational lensing effects in galaxy clusters suggest that there should be more mass than that can be explained by the visible mass of stars, gas and dust in the galaxies. This unseen mass or matter, generally referred to as dark matter, has puzzled physicists for a few decades and has now become one of the...
As dark matter continues to evade direct detection, new physics, such as theoretical particles, must be hypothesised to explain inconsistencies in astrophysical and cosmological observations. One of these proposed hypothetical particles, the dark photon, could be detected by liquid noble gas scintillators, such as the XENON experiment, through ionisation in an atom via the photoelectric...
Interest in 2D superconducting materials has been gaining momentum in recent years due to its potential applications for nanoscale devices such as superconducting transistors, quantum interferometers, and superconducting qubits. In particular, a family of materials known as layered hexagonal metal borides ($MB_2$) has garnered intrigue as a probe for investigating the behaviour of...
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are a promising approach to the decoding problem of Quantum Error Correction (QEC), but have observed consistent difficulty when generalising performance to larger QEC codes. Recent scalability-focused approaches have split the decoding workload by using local ANNs to perform initial syndrome processing and leaving final processing to a global residual...
Advanced epitaxy techniques have become essential for superconducting quantum circuits due to their ability to fabricate high-quality and low-loss superconductors. Atomic layer deposition, which provides precise layer-by-layer growth, is widely adopted in complex 3D architectures in advanced silicon manufacturing, such as FinFETs and gate-all-around transistors. In this study, we investigate...
The atmospheres of Venus and Mars are primarily CO$_2$. CO$_2$ photolyses at wavelengths $\lesssim$ 200 nm to CO and O. Direct recombination via CO+O+M $\rightarrow$ CO$_2$+M is very slow so the rate of production of CO$_2$ to balance its loss via photolysis is controlled by the abundances of trace radicals that catalyse production of CO$_2$ (eg., Yung and DeMore, Icarus 51, 199, 1982). These...
In this work, we consider a nondegenerate four-level closed-loop system where the relative phase shift between various applied fields can effectively modulate the response for the probe field. This configuration can be realized in the $^6$Li $D_1$ line transition hyperfine structure. Due to the closed-loop structure, the phase difference between the control and the probe field gives rise to...
The deflection of relativistic electron beams by magnetic fields leads to synchrotron radiation, which has found broad use in the fields of materials science, biology, medicine, cultural heritage, and
more. Although the performance of synchrotron light sources may be quantified by various metrics, their spectral brightness, which is in turn inversely proportional to the electron beam...
We present our ongoing efforts toward the preparation of Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) of metastable helium [1], which enables several atomic quantum experiments.
To achieve a high phase-space density for BEC, the sequence starts with the atomic source and Low velocity intense source(LVIS), followed by MOT,compressed MOT,magnetic trap,1D Doppler cooling, and ends with transfer to an optical...
Dicke states, permutationally symmetric superpositions of two-level excitations, are pivotal resources in quantum information science and metrology [1, 2]. Their robust multipartite entanglement makes them ideal candidates for surpassing standard quantum limits in sensing and computation. However, generating arbitrary symmetric states in ion traps, Dicke states being a subset, remains...
Galaxy mergers play a pivotal role in shaping the structure and evolution of galaxies. This study investigates how spiral galaxies morphologically transform after merging with companion galaxies, focusing on the relationship between initial merger conditions and the resulting structures. Observational data from SDSS and HST archives will be integrated with high-resolution simulations like...
The Medusae Fossae Formation [MFF] is a significant and complex geological feature on Mars that extends for more than 5,000 km along the equator of Mars. The soft, easily eroded deposits rise 4km from the Northern Plains of Elysium Planitia to the Southern Highlands. It has been suggested that the MMF was emplaced during the Hesperian epoch (3.8-3.0 billion years ago) and has been physically...
The science of time optimisation has a long and illustrious history dating to the original investigations of Fermat in discovering the ray principle of optics and the brachistochrone; others such as Pontryagin followed with many applications in control theory, physics and engineering science. In this talk we will discuss how to apply the methods of time optimisation and variational calculus to...
Levitated optomechanics offers a promising pathway to explore the boundary between quantum and classical physics, as well as for quantum-enhanced sensing with mesoscopic objects. In particular, levitated silica nanoparticles cooled to their quantum ground state could enable fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. Achieving this goal requires efficient particle loading into ultra-high vacuum...
Implementing arbitrary unitary transformations is crucial for applications in quantum computing, signal processing, and machine learning. Unitaries govern quantum state evolution, enabling reversible transformations critical in quantum tasks like cryptography and simulation and playing key roles in classical domains such as dimensionality reduction and signal compression. Integrated optical...
In light of the integration requirements of optoelectronic functional devices, the multifunctional optoelectronic crystal lithium niobate has emerged as a crucial matrix material. This development has imposed new demands on crystals, including uniformity of crystal structure, stoichiometric crystals, large diameter, and long equal diameter. Through the innovation of the growth technology of...
There is growing interest in the application of quantum information theory concepts to particle physics model-building. Recent research has established that the extremization of entanglement in particle scattering provides a natural way to realise interesting theoretical structure, both within and without the Standard Model. The success of these entanglement studies begs the question: can...
Impact cratering is a physical process causing geological changes on all planetary surfaces. It is one of common processes responsible for crustal structure and evolution over geological timescales. High-fidelity shock physics simulations are made to track the fate of a planetary impactor and associated shock changes in the target material during a non-catastrophic impact event. The size of...
Optical Very Long Baseline Interferometry offers the potential for unprecedented angular resolution in both astronomical imaging and precision measurements. Classical approaches, however, face significant limitations due to photon loss, background noise, and the requirements for dynamical delay lines over large distances.
We surveys recent developments in quantum-enabled VLBI, which aim to...
Experimentalists strive to better analyse signals of dark matter direct detection at detectors. Thus, improved theoretical models are being developed to describe WIMP-nucleus elastic scattering, with one particular interest area focusing on enhanced study of the nuclear response functions associated with various target detector isotopes. We build on this by investigating the sensitivity of...
Biological function is closely linked to cell morphology and subcellular structure, making 3D imaging techniques an essential tool for understanding complex biological processes. Typically, 3D imaging involves staining and labelling, which can be time-consuming, error-prone, and reliant on toxic reagents. Imaging based on the intrinsic biophysical properties of cells and tissues, such as...
The Sun exists at the intersection of many scientific frontiers, where classical and modern physics converge with environmental science, engineering, and data analytics. This paper presents a novel interdisciplinary approach to solar physics, emphasizing how understanding the Sun requires crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries. We explore the fusion-driven processes at the core, the...
We calculate the exact spectral function of a single impurity repulsively interacting with a bath of fermions in one-dimensional lattices, by deriving the explicit expression of the form factor for both regular Bethe states and the irregular spin-flip state and η-pairing state, based on the exactly solvable one dimensional Hubbard model. While at low impurity momentum Q ∼ 0 the spectral...
Neutron-rich nuclei around A$\sim$100 present intriguing cases in nuclear structure due to their significant deformation and complex shapes, including predicted triaxiality as well as rare oblate-deformed ground states. These features pose challenges for theoretical models, especially in describing the abrupt shape transitions observed between N = 58 and 60. Even-even nuclei in this region...
The use of photonic alternatives to conventional optical trains in telescope instrumentation offers key advantages in satisfying near-impossible tasks demanded by astrophysics (such as imaging Earth-sized exoplanets within the habitable zone of their host star or their formation within a proto-planetary disc).
Current imaging instruments using adaptive optics account for atmospheric seeing...
The natural mineral clinoatacamite, [Cu2Cl(OH)3], exhibits low-temperature, frustrated magnetic behaviour where competing interactions are responsible for novel magnetic properties. Attempts to establish the magnetic phases in this material have been undertaken and an unconventional applied field (H||b) phase diagram has been revealed [1]. Two critical transition temperatures at zero field...
We present a new catalog for solar flares derived from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) data using a deep learning–based detection method. Unlike the conventional rule-based methods, our approach identifies flare rises directly from the time series with a model that integrates multi-scale convolutional layers, a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM), and...
Accelerator storage rings for light sources and colliders are highly sensitive to magnet misalignments and field errors. These imperfections distort the orbit, which negatively impact the brightness or luminosity. Precise orbit correction plays a vital role in optimising the performance of next generation lepton accelerators.
CERN’s proposed e+/e- Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee) is a...
High harmonic generation (HHG) is a physical effect which happens when a strong driving laser acts on atomic, molecular, or solid systems. As a result, a system emits at frequencies of integer multiples of the driving laser frequency [1]. It was also shown that including correlations between atoms can generate entangled and squeezed light or entangled photon pairs [2]. These can be an...
A typical surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) system relies on deeply subwavelength field localization in nanoscale plasmonic cavities to enhance both the excitation and emission of Raman-active molecules [1,2]. Here, we demonstrate that a germanium-vacancy (GeV) defect in diamond can efficiently mediate the excitation process, by acting as a bright atomic antenna [3]. At low...
Despite the large quantity of observational data available, the Sun’s magnetic field dynamics remain a mystery. Solar flares and eruptions, which result from the field evolution, can have significant impacts on Earth and our space environment. Data-driven modelling of the solar magnetic field uses photospheric observations as boundary conditions to drive a simulation of the field above the...
Leading designs for quantum networks require efficient microwave-to-optical signal transduction. One promising platform uses ensembles of atoms (Er3+) coupled to dual microwave-optical cavities [1]. It is projected that these devices can reach practical efficiencies by boosting the coupling between cavities and optical and microwave transitions in atoms. However, increasing these couplings...
The effective design of new materials for sustainable energy conversion can be facilitated by the accurate prediction of electronic properties with moderate computational complexity and cost. The self-interaction error (SIE) of Kohn-Sham density functional theory (KS-DFT) is a non-physical, non-linear dependence of an orbital's energy on its own fractional occupation [Dabo et al., Phys. Rev....
The pursuit of highly coherent light sources is fundamental to advancements in quantum metrology, sensing, and communication. Although the Schawlow-Townes limit, where coherence scales as the square of the number of photons in the laser cavity, has long defined the standard for laser coherence, recent work [1] established a more fundamental limit, the "Heisenberg limit", where coherence scales...
In this work, fabrication of Mn3-xFexGa epitaxial thin films by using an ultra-high vacuum electron beam evaporation system, clarifying the relationship between composition of Fe, magnetic properties, crystal structure and film thickness were studied. The epitaxial growth of L21- ordered Mn-Fe-Ga thin films has been confirmed on the MgO (001) single crystalline substrate by using in-situ RHEED...
The search for novel semiconductors with sub-1 eV bandgaps is critical for efficient infrared photon-to-electricity conversion from high-temperature thermal emitters in thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems. Double perovskites with the general formula A₂B′B″X₆ offer exceptional chemical tunability, making them attractive for targeted infrared bandgap engineering. For TPV devices operating with...
Optical quantum memories are an essential optical technology with applications in quantum communications and networking, quantum sensing and optical quantum computing. Ensemble optical memories rely on a controllable, coherent interaction between light and a long-lived electronic state, with the light absorbed into and regenerated from a collective excitation of the ensemble of emitters....
Sunspots, together with their stellar counterparts—starspots—serve as powerful tracers of magnetic activity on solar and stellar surfaces. Although visually dark, these regions are acoustically rich, as their intricate magnetic structures strongly influence the propagation of pressure waves. In this work, I present a comparative helioseismic investigation of sunspots on the Sun and extend the...
Antimatter remains one of the most intriguing frontiers in modern physics. The most readily available form of antimatter is the positron, the electron antiparticle, which can briefly bind with an electron to form positronium (Ps)—a short-lived, hydrogenic ‘atom’. Positron and positronium can used to explore and test our understanding of scattering dynamics and fragmentation in antiparticle...
High-precision time measurements are crucial for both high-energy physics experiments and advanced medical imaging applications, such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET). Future detector systems require readout electronics that combine sub-10 ps timing resolution with scalability, compactness, and efficient multi-channel integration.
The CAEN A5203 module, part of the FERS 5200 system,...
Dark matter detectors, in particular those based on dielectric materials, are among the best tools for probing light dark matter. In the coming years detectors of this type will become sensitive to solar neutrino scattering. For dark matter scattering at very low recoil energies, collective excitations of the electrons in the solid become important. In this talk I'll share some new results...
This study investigates the impact of shear strain on the phase transformation behavior of Si and Ge under high-pressure conditions. Si and Ge are known to undergo a series of pressure-induced phase transformations, resulting in new phases with technological potential [1,2]. Utilizing both traditional diamond anvil cells (DAC) and a new rotational diamond anvil cell we demonstrate that...
Single Event Effects are potentially catastrophic electric and electronic effects created in analog and digital electronic devices exposed to ionising radiation. They are particularly dangerous in Space. and so a radiation hardness qualification procedure is often required for electronic devices to be considered Sapce safe. Qualification requires the use of hadron accelerators but alternative...
Refrigeration is of vital importance for modern society—for example, for food storage and air conditioning—and 25 to 30 per cent of the world’s electricity is consumed for refrigeration. Current refrigeration technology, mostly involving the conventional vapour compression cycle, is of growing environmental concern because of large amount of greenhouse gases released into atmosphere every...
All current quantum devices suffer from noise originating from system-environment interactions. Often the noise is non-Markovian, i.e. correlated across the time-steps of a quantum circuit—as reported in spin silicon platforms and the superconducting devices of IBM and Google. However, most characterisation techniques assume Markovian (uncorrelated) noise, which results in inaccurate gate...
Nonlinear sources of quantum light are foundational to nearly all optical quantum technologies and are actively advancing toward real-world deployment. Achieving this goal requires fabrication capabilities to be scaled to industrial standards, necessitating precise modeling tools that can both guide device design within realistic fabrication constraints and enable accurate post-fabrication...
SABRE is an international collaboration that will operate similar particle detectors in the Northern (SABRE North) and Southern Hemispheres (SABRE South). This innovative approach aims to distinguish potential dark matter signals from seasonal backgrounds: a pioneering strategy only feasible with a Southern Hemisphere experiment. SABRE South is located at the Stawell Underground Physics...
While the optical properties of calcite are well known in the visible region, that same cannot be said of the terahertz region. Campbell et al. [1] have reported attenuated total reflectance (ATR) spectra. Sakai et al. [2] used pulsed terahertz radiation ATR. ATR has the attraction of experimental simplicity; however, the results are not always easy to interpret, nor is information related...
Precise and robust control of sequences of quantum operations is essential for quantum information processing. The present quantum hardware is plagued with correlated noise, i.e., non-Markovian noise. The existing mitigation strategies, which are based on Markovian assumption, are ineffective. Multi-time process tomography aims to provide a complete description of the nature and strength of...
The usefulness and importance of light polarisation have skyrocketed in recent times with applications found
in biomedicine, imaging, characterisation of biological and chemical systems, and astrophysics just to name a
few. Ecologically, more and more examples of flora and fauna are found to utilise the polarisation of light for
growth, navigation, and communication, increasing the need for...
Baryon number is an accidental symmetry of the Standard Model. Its violation is one of the most compelling phenomena predicted
by physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). Within the framework of effective field theory, I will discuss how next-generation neutrino experiments including Hyper-Kamiokande, DUNE, and JUNO can provide new insights on minimal extensions of the SM.
In many minerals, the magnetic permeability and/or the resistance depends on the applied magnetic field. These properties, magnetic hysteresis and magnetoresistance, could therefore be used as a way of identifying minerals to differentiate ore from waste in the mining industry. This application requires the properties to be measured without electrical contacts, operate at room temperature and...
Quantum sensing leverages quantum resources to achieve measurement capabilities beyond what is possible classically [1,2]. While there is great focus on precision parameter estimation, an underexplored application is single-shot binary-decision making, where the task is to decide whether a signal has been detected. This is particularly advantageous when the underlying event is rare. Quantum...
Non-destructive mapping of elemental distribution in bulk samples is hard to achieve with standard analytical tools: neutron activation analysis (NAA) allows for elemental identification but provides no spatial localisation, while X-ray or neutron computed tomography (CT) can provide structural information but often fall short in confidently extrapolating elemental distributions. We...
Germanium-tin (GeSn) alloys have recently emerged as promising materials for infrared photodetectors due to their tunable bandgap, which ranges from the short-wavelength infrared (<3 μm) to the mid-wavelength infrared (~3–10 μm). Ge-GeSn superlattices offer further advantages, including enhanced carrier confinement and improved absorption efficiency arising from quantum confinement effects....
Recent observations by the CMS and ATLAS experiments at the LHC have reported anomalies in the production of tau-lepton and photon pairs over expected background at an invariant mass of ~95 GeV. Taken with an older result from LEP data showing a similar anomaly in the production of b-quark pairs, these results raise the possibility of an as-yet unknown resonance at 95 GeV causing each of these...
Digital quantum simulation (DQS) is a promising application of quantum computers. Typically, short Trotter step sizes are required to realise accurate DQS. In the context of Trotterised DQS, it is also useful to be able to tune interaction times and even implement “negative-time” gates, when implementing higher-order digitisation algorithms and to control the amount of digitisation error,...
We present a novel gas sensor based on wavelength modulation spectroscopy to measure methane concentrations in the farming and food industry. Methane is a highly impactful greenhouse gas, and its monitoring is essential for environmental surveillance, the development of low-emission breeding strategies, and the detection of leaks across production and processing stages. Moreover, captured...
Quantum hardware processing power is normally optimised by minimising decoherence effects from unwanted interactions with noisy environments. Yet paradoxically, carefully tailored bath interactions can be exploited to preserve coherence rather than degrade it. Engineered dissipation, or reservoir engineering, introduces tailored couplings between a quantum system and its environment to serve...
XLZD is a future dark-matter direct detection experiment that will use a liquid Xenon (LXe) based Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to search primarily for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), with sensitivity all the way to the neutrino-fog for WIMP candidates with mass above about 3 GeV/c^2. The typical channel used to search for these particles is through their recoil on the nuclei of...
The automation of complex experimental systems has been a long-standing goal with numerous real-world applications. While reinforcement learning (RL) has achieved breakthroughs across many domains, prior approaches to physical system control required crafting realistic simulations, complex reward engineering, and extensive training times, limiting practical deployment.
Saha et.al. (2025)...
The Unruh effect, resulting from the entanglement of modes across the right and left wedges of Rindler spacetime, predicts that a uniformly accelerating observer perceives the Minkowski vacuum as a thermal bath. Despite its theoretical significance, this effect remains undetected. The Unruh effect has a timelike counterpart due to the entanglement between past and future Rindler light cones....
The proton sits at the heart of every atom, yet its internal structure remains one of the deepest challenges in physics. Its properties, such as its mass and spin, do not arise simply from its constituent quarks, but from the complex, strongly interacting dynamics of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). At low energies, QCD is strongly coupled and resists analytic solutions, making the emergent...
Over the past five years, university education has undergone significant transformation. The lingering effects of COVID lockdowns have reduced student attendance, while the widespread availability of AI tools has made it easier for students to outsource the cognitive effort behind many assessments. These shifts have contributed to increased isolation, declining wellbeing, and a rise in mental...
Designing the Quantum Future: Novel Quantum Materials and Devices for Emerging Quantum Technologies
Atomic matter-wave interferometers have demonstrated exceptional long-term stability in precision rotation sensing under controlled laboratory conditions [1]. Translating this performance to compact, mobile platforms could revolutionise navigation technologies. Guided matter-wave gyroscopes, which confine ultracold atomic gases in optical potentials, offer a promising route toward...
This study presents a novel approach to imaging diffuse environments using non-ionising optical tomography combined with inverse Radon reconstruction techniques. We developed and characterised gelatin-based phantom materials with distinct spectral properties, measured using a CloudSpec spectrophotometer across the 350–850 nm range. These materials simulate biological tissues and enable precise...
Higher-dimensional quantum systems (qudits) offer advantages in information encoding, error resilience, and compact gate implementations, and naturally arise in platforms such as superconducting and solid-state systems. However, realistic conditions such as non-Markovian noise, non-ideal pulses, and beyond rotating wave approximation (RWA) dynamics pose significant challenges for controlling...
High-dimensional qudit systems yield the exciting prospect of hosting error-correctable logical qubits [1]. The antimony (123Sb) donor in silicon is ideal for this purpose, because its spin-7/2 nucleus embeds an 8-dimensional Hilbert space (or 16-dimensional, including the electron [2]) that can encode Schrödinger cat states [3].
Scaling up this donor nuclear qubits requires using electrons...
The interactions of biological processes with magnetic fields can have significant impacts, with a strong example of this being magnetosensitivity in avian proteins allowing for migration[1]. The two main biological systems for optically-driven magnetosensing are cryptochrome (CRY) and light-oxygen-voltage (LOV) proteins[2,3], where each can be broadly summarised by 4 steps: photoactivation,...
Aims:
Recently the first first-in-human minibeam radiation therapy (MBRT) treatments with an orthovoltage x-ray unit at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota was presented. We present the development of a GEANT4-based radiation transport model to simulate the minibeam radiation field produced using a clinical orthovoltage machine.
Materials and Methods:
The full clinical orthovoltage machine...
Quantum technologies are rapidly emerging as powerful tools for addressing complex challenges in biology. In this talk, I will share a cross-section of Infleqtion’s research at the intersection of both quantum computing and quantum sensing with applications in biomedicine. On the computing side, I will describe our ongoing work within the Wellcome Leap Q4Bio program, where we have developed a...
Qubits based on Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in superconductor–semiconductor nanowires have attracted intense interest as a platform for utility-scale quantum computing, due to their promise of intrinsically low error rates enabled by topological protection. These error rates are expected to be suppressed exponentially with increasing nanowire length or decreasing temperature. Here we identify a...
Although students are expected to begin fourth-year atomic physics with a strong understanding of quantum mechanics (QM) developed in second and third year, it has been identified that students often struggle to link theoretical QM concepts with real-world atomic phenomena and applications.
We have developed a series of computational workbooks that are self-directed, interactive and have been...
One long-standing puzzle in modern physics is the discrepancy between the most accurate proton charge radius measurements from muonic hydrogen spectroscopy and electronic hydrogen spectroscopy [1]. Despite theoretical improvements over the last decade, the mismatch remains [2], potentially hinting at physics beyond the Standard Model [3].
Helium, the next simplest atom after hydrogen,...
Hospital based medical physicists are uniquely positioned at the interface between fundamental research and direct patient benefit. Translating innovations from academia and industry into the hospital setting, however, presents both opportunities and challenges. Translational pathways typically involve the progression of prototypes through feasibility testing, clinical trials, and eventual...
Little is known about the distribution of magnetization inside the nucleus. While nuclear charge distributions may be well understood through techniques like electron scattering, muonic atom spectroscopy, and precision measurements of atomic isotope shifts, nuclear magnetization distributions are much harder to probe.
We highlight and exploit a property of heavy muonic atoms that enables...
Teaching physics is rapidly shifting from rote memorization to emphasizing conceptual understanding, constructing knowledge through lecture demonstrations and experiments, and applying that knowledge in hands-on situations. The desire for such change has been long expressed by major physics organizations, including the American Institute of Physics, the Australian Institute of Physics, and the...
We present Fano-like resonances in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanowire resonators composed of coupled Sagnac interferometers (SIs). By tuning the reflectivity of each SI and the inter-coupling strength, we precisely control coherent mode interference to realize high-performance optical analogues of Fano resonances. The device, designed and fabricated on an SOI platform, is analyzed...
Microscopy is central to biological discovery, but high performance often requires high illumination powers that induce photodamage. Quantum correlations offer a way to overcome this limit by enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio at fixed optical intensities.
We present a quantum microscope based on stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), a widely used technique for molecular fingerprinting...
Point defects in spinor fields protected by topological invariants, the winding of the spinor configuration around the centre of the defect, have attracted a great amount of interests as they present a potential platform for spintronics and quantum communication. In this work, we present the generation of momentum-space pseudospin (polarization) defects in non-Hermitian exciton-polariton...
Over the past two decades, the field of cavity optomechanics has succeeded in cooling resonant mechanical oscillators down to their quantum ground state. The success of cavity optomechanics has led to various proposals which aim to harness the quantum properties of cooled mechanical systems, including in tests of fundamental physics [1], quantum state preparation [2] and quantum metrology [3]....
The measurement of atomic parity violation in Cs currently provides the most precise test of electroweak theory at low energies. High precision calculations of the Stark-induced 6S-7S vector transition polarisability are required to interpret this measurement and determine the level of agreement with the Standard Model prediction. However, there is currently a 2.8σ discrepancy between values...
Trapped-ion platforms have emerged as a powerful architecture for quantum simulation, offering high-fidelity universal control over both internal atomic states (spins) and bosonic motional modes. This makes them particularly well-suited for simulating molecular dynamics, where a natural analogy allows a molecule’s electronic configuration to be mapped onto the ion's spin, and its vibrational...
Of the fundamental components of cancer therapy, radiotherapy is by far the one causing the least ecological foot print, compared to surgery and systemic therapy (chemotherapy, immunotherapy). While radiotherapy is mainly a local therapeutic approach, it can help to significantly reduce the requirement for extensive surgery as well as for the need of systemic therapy. From clinical...
Australia faces a significant shortage of qualified high school physics teachers, with over 1 in 5 reportedly teaching “out-of-field”. This scarcity negatively impacts student choices and success, contributing to a broader skilled worker shortage. There is also substantial demand for individuals with physics skills to support the Australian Government’s investment in nuclear technology and to...
Despite significant advances in molecular biology and microscopy techniques, many questions remain regarding the interactions between a single cell and its environment. In particular, understanding protein-membrane binding is vital for optimising the delivery of vaccines and medicines. By studying these transmembrane behaviours, we can improve drug delivery and increase the specificity of cell...
Low-loss high-speed switches are an integral component of future photonic quantum technologies, with applications in state generation, multiplexing, and the implementation of quantum gates. Phase modulation is one method of achieving this switching; however, existing optical phase modulators, such as Pockels cells and waveguided lithium niobate, offer either high bandwidth or low loss—not...
Gaussian Boson Samplers (GBS) are non-universal optical quantum computers introduced to demonstrate quantum advantage without requiring full error-correction by efficiently sampling from a classically-hard distribution. These devices are relatively simple: just squeezed states fed through a random, precise array of linear optics. Recently, the first large-scale GBS devices were created: the...
Isotope shift spectroscopy has repeatedly demonstrated its efficacy in high-precision tests of fundamental physics and the Standard Model. Its ability to benchmark atomic models and determine sizes of atomic nuclei has been well established, and in recent years, it has also been identified as one method for searching for potential dark matter particles.
The isotopic shift in transition...
Medical Imaging data provides a wealth of information to the health care pathway including diagnosis, understanding disease extent, prognosis, outcome and follow-up. Medical image data can capture anatomical, biological and physiological information through computed tomography, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and other approaches. To use this data effectively for an...
Traditional thermoelectric research faces persistent challenges arising from inherent trade-offs among the Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, and thermal conductivity. Despite extensive efforts through doping, alloying, and microstructural modifications, the figure-of-merit (ZT) of modified single-phase thermoelectric materials remains well below the theoretical Mahan–Sofo limit of...
In the not-too-distant past, reliable transfer of data was largely done with small portable memories. This method is ideal for quantum communication in which the required resource for protocols such as quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation is distributed Bell pairs, as these can be distributed ahead of time using quantum memories [1410.3224].
Quantum low-density parity-check...
We have adapted one of the ANU positron beamlines, which use a Surko buffer gas trap and a strong magnetic field, to enable direct measurements of reaction products from atomic collision experiments. An effusive gas jet was added to the beamline, which allowed us to cross a helium beam with the high-resolution, pulsed positron beam. Long-lived (metastable) neutral excited helium atoms formed...
Accelerator‑based neutron sources (ABNS) are reviving interest in neutron‑capture therapy (NCT) for cancer treatment. However, each facility needs a custom beam‑shaping assembly (BSA) to tailor the neutron spectrum, flux, spatial profile and gamma contamination. We have developed a modular, macro‑driven Geant4 framework that accelerates BSA prototyping and adaptation across facilities.
Our...
Fundamental constants—such as the fine-structure constant α, the strong-interaction scale, and particle masses—may vary in an expanding Universe. A spatial variation could help explain apparent fine tuning: we inhabit a region where the values permit life. Hints from quasar absorption spectra suggest a gradient in α, but decisive confirmation requires laboratory tests. Atomic clocks provide...
Cooling technologies are essential for health and comfort worldwide, yet conventional vapour-compression systems are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions arise from both the low energy efficiency of the cycle and the leakage of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, which have very high global warming potentials. As demand for air-conditioning accelerates in a...
Levitated optomechanics, the trapping and control of microscopic and mesoscopic particles in vacuum, has seen recent and widespread success including record torque sensitivity [1], and yoctonewton force sensing [2]. A levitated nanoparticle is ideal for a ‘macroscopic’ quantum platform due to its intrinsic mass and low coupling to the environment. This presents an exciting avenue for...
The positron is the antimatter counterpart of the electron. They can annihilate directly, producing gamma rays (e.g., two 511 keV) or form a bound state known as positronium (Ps). The bound state has two forms: a singlet or para-Ps (125ps lifetime), and a triplet state or ortho-Ps (142ns lifetime). These states decay into a number of gamma rays (even or odd, respectively),which can be measured...
Coherently manipulated large ion crystals in a Penning trap are a promising candidate for near-term quantum simulation of complex many-body phenomena [1]. At the University of Sydney, we have developed a Penning trap to perform such experiments with crystals containing hundreds of beryllium ions [2]. The system has recently demonstrated efficient site-resolved imaging, enabling single-shot...
Radiation oncology is a cornerstone of modern cancer care, with approximately 40% of patients receiving radiotherapy (RT) during their cancer journey. Central to its success is achieving an optimal therapeutic ratio: maximising tumour control while minimising side effects. Radiation oncology is a highly technical field, where new algorithm and hardware advances drive improvements in patient...
Lasers with ultra-narrow linewidths, stable single-frequency operation, exceptional beam quality, and high power in the visible spectrum are indispensable for applications such as artificial guide star generation and optical lattices in next-generation clocks. Diamond Raman Lasers (DRLs) represent a compelling solution, as they enable access to spectral regions that are otherwise challenging...
A large fraction of global primary energy is dissipated as waste heat, motivating the search for materials that can directly convert heat to electricity via the Seebeck effect. Tin selenide (SnSe) is a leading thermoelectric candidate due to its ultralow lattice thermal conductivity and favourable electronic structure. Beyond conventional optimisation strategies such as doping or alloying, the...
We present a novel demonstration of an optical memory-based time–frequency Fourier transform (TFFT) using an ensemble of cold 87Rb atoms. Our approach combines two widely studied light–matter interaction protocols, Gradient Echo Memory (GEM) for storage and Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) for recall, to perform a Fourier transform directly within the atomic medium. Optical...
Randomized benchmarking (RB) is the most widely used characterisation technique for assessing gate quality via a single decay parameter, but standard protocols implicitly assume temporally uncorrelated (Markovian) noise. In realistic devices, environmental fluctuations induce correlations in time (non-Markovianity), motivating extensions of RB beyond the Markovian regime. Recently, some...
We extend the findings of Costa et al. (arXiv:2312.07690), which demonstrated that the discrete adiabatic quantum linear system solver exhibits constant factors approximately 1,200 times smaller in practice than previously estimated by worst-case bounds. In the present work, we introduce a comparison between the adiabatic-based quantum walk method and the more recent "shortcut" quantum linear...
Superconducting electronics are central to emerging, high-impact quantum technologies. Operating in the microwave regime, these systems require cryogenic environments and electromagnetic shielding to suppress unwanted electromagnetic interactions, blackbody radiation and quasiparticle interactions that can degrade coherence (Krinner et.al, 2019) or introduce experimental interference....
Layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are among the two-dimensional (2D) materials family. They have been extensively studied due to their intriguing physical properties and potential for many applications, for optical, electronic and optoelectronic devices.
Conventional solid-state band theory with density functional theory (DFT) has achieved a high degree of success in predicting...
Electrically Driven Hole Spin Resonance Detected with Charge Sensor in a Planar Si CMOS Structure
A. Shamim {1}, S. D. Liles {1}, J. Hillier {1}, I.Vorreiter{1}, F. E. Hudson {2}{3}, W. H. Lim {2}{3}, A. S. Dzurak {2}{3}, A. R. Hamilton {1}.
{1} - School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia.
{2} - School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications,...
The transmon qubit, in which a qubit is encoded in the anharmonic spectrum of a superconducting circuit, is a leading hardware platform for building utility-scale quantum computers. Thanh Le, Cole and Stace propose an alternative encoding for transmon qubits and demonstrate that a $4\pi$-periodic inductive element can be used to access states which are forbidden in the traditional encoding....
Optically active spins in solids are promising for many applications in quantum information science, such as entanglement distribution nodes in quantum networking, single photon sources for linear optical quantum computing, and as a platform for cluster state quantum computing. Their optical connectivity could also be leveraged to implement low-density parity check (LDPC) error correction...
Raman lasers make use of inelastic, third-order nonlinear light-matter interaction and inherent phase matching to shift optical frequencies and enhance beam quality by transferring pump energy into the cavity’s fundamental mode. These processes have a linewidth-narrowing effect, expected to reduce laser linewidth by up to eight orders of magnitude, outperforming Brillouin lasers, with reported...
Hyperentanglement, a sophisticated form of quantum entanglement across multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs), holds immense potential for revolutionizing quantum technologies in communication, sensing, and computing. This work presents a computational approach to generate hyperentanglement using waveguides, a method shown to be more efficient than traditional techniques and capable of producing a...
Travelling-wave parametric amplifiers (TWPAs) are critical components for improving the readout fidelity of superconducting qubit systems [1]. While Josephson junction-based TWPAs offer excellent broadband noise performance and are widely adopted in quantum computing architectures, their limited dynamic range, fabrication complexity, and sensitivity to magnetic fields and elevated temperatures...
Turbulence in two-dimensional (2D) fluids often leads to the formation of long-lived, large-scale vortex structures. In 2D quantum fluids, such as Bose–Einstein condensates, these structures manifest as clusters of singly quantised vortices [1,2]. Simula et al. showed via Gross–Pitaevskii simulations that vortex clustering can spontaneously emerge from an initially random distribution of...
A nuclear wasteform serves to contain radionuclides and enable safe disposal of nuclear waste over long timeframes. In ceramic wasteforms, radionuclides are locked into specific atomic sites within the crystal structure through strong inorganic bonds, effectively preventing their release. Fluoride-pyrochlores are being explored for the immobilisation of actinides from Generation IV molten salt...
With clinical breast imaging trials soon taking place at the Australian Synchrotron using phase contrast CT, accurately characterising the radiation dose, specifically the Mean Glandular Dose (MGD), is essential for ensuring radiation safety and optimising beam parameters. A GEANT4 simulation study was performed to investigate the effects of beam energies, 32 keV and 35 keV, on anthropomorphic...
Quantum machine learning (QML) has the potential to outperform classical methods for certain structured data problems. For datasets with specific group structures, quantum kernels have been shown to learn more efficiently than classical approaches. These kernels use unitary representations of groups to construct feature maps that are covariant under group actions, enabling the algorithm to...
The advent of Radio-Pharmaceutical Therapy (RPT) marks an impactful advancement in radiation oncology, offering the potential to treat tumours with cellular precision while minimising adverse effects. Evaluating the efficacy of this treatment relies on accurate dosimetry, which is traditionally informed by absorbed dose, but absorbed dose alone overlooks the spatial complexity of...
Amorphous Monolayer Carbon (AMC), a disordered form of graphene first synthesised in 2020, displays high flexibility but has low mechanical strength, restricting potential application in areas such as flexible electronics.
Existing descriptions of 2D amorphous materials generally fall between assigning materials to Zachariasen continuous random networks, as frequently ascribed to bulk...
Raman lasers are a promising platform for narrow linewidth single-longitudinal mode lasers, and their Raman shifts provide access to wavelength ranges not easily reached with commercial lasers. Moreover, the Raman process provides intrinsic line narrowing, recently shown to greatly reduce linewidth and suppress high-frequency noise relative to the pump. Diamond, in particular, has the highest...
Photocatalytic water splitting is a promising technology for using solar energy to produce directly hydrogen (green hydrogen (GH2)), GH2 is considered to as environmentally friendly and renewable energy based fuel. However, only a few semiconductor materials have been developed as efficient photocatalyst, amongst them photocatalysts based on Al:SrTiO3.(1) A typical photocatalyst consists of...
Introduction
Accurate dosimetry in ophthalmic plaque brachytherapy is essential due to steep dose gradients and the proximity of critical ocular structures. Current clinical practice relies on manufacturer-certified data with limited independent verification. This study reports on the development of a novel system for rapid pre-insertion validation of Ru-106 and I-125 plaques using...
Nuclear Clock and the Search for New Physics
The isomeric transition in 229Th - recently laser-excited by multiple groups [1] - opens a path to a nuclear clock with accuracy competitive with, and potentially exceeding, the best optical atomic clocks. Because the nucleus is well shielded from environmental perturbations, systematic shifts can be intrinsically small; however, the surrounding...
QFT models involving detectors are usually modelled perturbatively out of necessity, however, there are certain situations when non-perturbative methods can be used. When the detector is a finite dimensional qudit, non-perturbative modelling is possible if the detector interacts suddenly and very quickly (δ-switching) or if the detector is degenerate (zero energy gap). When the detector...
The rare-earth nitrides are a series of ferromagnetic semiconductors with suitable properties for cryogenic memory applications, including quantum and superconducting computing systems. When grown as thin films, the magnetic and transport properties of rare-earth nitrides can be tuned independently by varying the growth conditions and rare-earth nitride selection [1]. In particular, solid...
The mystery of dark matter (DM) is a long-standing issue in physics, with numerous dedicated experiments returning no confirmed detection. As many direct detection experiments rely on catching a signal of nuclear recoil, these types of experiments are not applicable to many DM models.
Instead, we can utilise the precision that atomic physics allows to search for potential interactions...
The Elekta Unity is an MR-LINAC that integrates a 7 MV linear accelerator with a 1.5 T MRI in order to provide adaptive online radiotherapy. Using Geant4 version 11.1 and the EMStandard Option 4 Physics Constructor a highly accurate simulation of the Elekta Unity MR-LINAC was developed to produce patient specific dose maps. These dose maps are utilised for the training of a robust dose...
Ground-state energy estimation of chemical systems is perhaps one of the most promising applications of emerging quantum processors. However, the presence of noise makes near-term implementation of quantum algorithms challenging, while fault-tolerance at the scale required for useful computation remains a medium-term prospect. We present Hamiltonian moments-based approaches to ground-state...
Atomic vibrations on the terahertz (THz) scale play a central role in determining a material’s optical, electronic, thermal, and mechanical properties. In particular, the coupling between vibrational dynamics and thermal transport or phase transitions offers opportunities to design materials for efficient energy conversion and storage.
This presentation will highlight recent work...
Precise source localisation is vital for safe HDR brachytherapy. This study examines a fibre-optic dosimeter for real-time tracking of a ¹⁹²Ir source, using a new calibration approach that incorporates fluorescence and Cherenkov contributions alongside scintillation signals. Unlike conventional stem-effect correction methods, which rely on hardware modifications or spectral separation, this...
Non-equilibrium systems underpin a range of phenomena and can often evolve to form emergent structures. Understanding these fundamental processes advances our grasp of complex physical behaviour, and remains a central challenge of physics. One method to drive a system out of equilibrium is via a quench, such as dropping temperature or applying a magnetic field. If this instantaneous shift is...
Photocatalytic water splitting allows producing green hydrogen without the need to be connected to the electric grid. Photocatalysts absorb light and generate electron hole pairs. Provided that the energy levels of the valence band and conduction band are positioned below and above the energy levels required for the oxygen and hydrogen evolution reaction, respectively, the absorbed light...
Atomic hyperfine structure provides a window into the structure of nuclei. High-precision atomic theory is essential for extracting model-independent nuclear observables from hyperfine measurements – permitting the interrogation of nuclear models. Such studies also allow the testing of atomic structure theory in the nuclear vicinity, which is needed for low-energy searches for new physics...
The development of linear optical quantum computers (QCs) has accelerated in recent years, in part, due to experimental implementations of large-scale Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) devices. These QCs send squeezed state photons into a linear photonic network and output a series of photon count patterns. This seemingly simple task is #P-hard because, for implementations utilizing photon-number...
One avenue to test and advance nuclear structure theory is by comparing the hyperfine energy splitting measured by experiment, to those calculated theoretically. In this talk I will share our recent advances on precision atomic hyperfine calculations of heavy atoms and exotic muonic atoms. I will highlight the motivation to study these two atomic classes.
The hyperfine structure arises...
Open quantum systems evolving under time-dependent Lindbladian simulations dynamics arise in diverse contexts, yet efficient algorithms for large-scale, time-dependent Lindbladian dynamics remain underexplored. In the fault-tolerant setting, the time required to propagate a state by a complex, time-dependent Hamiltonian is prohibitive. We circumvent this issue by introducing a...
Through left- or right-handed twisting, we investigate the impact of mirror-asymmetry (chirality) of the conducting boundary conditions of an equilaterial triangular cross section electromagnetic resonator. We observe the generation of eigenmodes with nonzero electromagnetic helicity as a result of the coupling of near degenerate $\mathrm{TE}_{11(p+1)}$ and $\mathrm{TM}_{11 p}$ modes. This can...
Secure Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) is of critical importance in modern day to day life and the contemporary state-of-the-art radio frequency-based systems are vulnerable to various intercept and signal jamming attacks. Thus, the need for development of more secure alternative PNT capabilities. Quantum entanglement provides an elegant way of sharing tightly correlated time...
Approximately half of all cancer patients receive radiotherapy, with external beam radiotherapy being a cornerstone of treatment. The objective is to deliver radiation with high precision to achieve tumor control while minimizing exposure of surrounding healthy tissue. Despite major technological advances, some radioresistant tumors remain incurable with conventional methods.
Microbeam...
Many discoveries in particle physics obtained on high luminosity colliders will be impossible without development of sophisticated semiconductor radiation detectors and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) for their multichannel readout electronics. Among them different kind of strip detectors , pixelated detectors , detectors utilising 3D detector technology, Low Gain Avalanche...
Predicting the gravitational wave spectrum from symmetry breaking in the early universe during first-order phase transitions is key to understanding these symmetries. In this talk I present our recent advancements in developing a self-consistent framework for predicting such gravitational wave spectra. Our approach enhances existing calculations by providing a more comprehensive treatment of...
Discrete Wigner functions (DWFs) are central tools for visualising states, signifying nonclassicality, and supporting quantitative analysis in quantum information, yet many inequivalent constructions coexist for each Hilbert-space dimension. This fragmentation obscures which features are fundamental and which are artefacts of representation, and it impedes quantitative comparison of...
Magnetic thin films are important for computing technologies, where atomic-scale control of magnetic properties is required. Here, we present a 1D micromagnetic simulator (microM-ref1D) for thin film magnets with twisted magnetization profiles. Importantly, it is integrated with the Ref1D software for polarized neutron reflectometry fitting to accurately extract magnetic parameters.
Using...
Beam‑shaping assembly (BSA) design using Monte Carlo techniques for accelerator‑based boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) requires accurate modelling of light‑ion reactions on thin or thick targets, which define the neutron source term for subsequent beam shaping. Geant4 11.1.3, PHITS 3.33, FLUKA 4‑4.0 and MCNP 6.3 have been benchmarked for thick‑target neutron yield and spectra from...
In quantum algorithms for simulation of quantum systems, a leading method is to use a product formula approach. The Hamiltonian is written as $H=T+V$, where the kinetic energy $T$ and potential energy $V$ are each calculated. Whereas $T$ can be calculated with complexity $n$ for a system with $n$ charges, calculating $V$ has complexity $n^2$ and is therefore a bottleneck. This complexity is...
This talk introduces Quantum-AI Biophotonic Diagnostics for Point-of-Care Brain Tumor Screening, a next-generation framework that unites quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and nanoscale biophotonics to transform biomedical diagnostics. We present an integrated approach for early cancer detection that combines plasmonic biophotonic sensors with a quantum machine learning (QML)...
Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs) are central to the SABRE South experiment’s
ability to detect rare, low-energy events, such as potential dark matter interac-
tions in ultra-pure NaI(Tl) crystals. To correctly interpret what the detector
sees, we need simulations that faithfully reproduce how our PMTs respond to
real signals. This work presents the comparison of the simulated PMT wave-
forms...
We demonstrate an optimal quantum control strategy for the deterministic preparation of entangled harmonic oscillator states in trapped ions. The protocol employs dynamical phase modulation of laser-driven Jaynes-Cummings and anti-Jaynes-Cummings interactions. We prepare Two-Mode Squeezed Vacuum (TMSV) states in the mechanical motions of a trapped ion and characterize the states with...
Dissipative solitons and localized dissipative structures are ubiquitous, from optomechanics [1] to fluid dynamics [2], and even cosmological defects [3]. Dissipative solitons exist in systems far from equilibrium, where energy is continuously being lost and resupplied, which introduces unique properties distinct from analogous systems at equilibrium. These dynamics have been studied...
A GEANT4 study into the concept for a simple, silicon-based, electronic fast neutron dosimeter for radiation protection purposes is presented. The circular shaped dosimeter utilised the fluence approach to neutron dosimetry to achieve a dose equivalent response. This approach involved using the neutron dose equivalent conversion coefficients to relate the dosimetry quantity fluence, to the...
The established guiding principle for pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of high-quality YBa₂Cu₃O₇₋ₓ (YBCO) superconducting films suggests that the optimal target-to-substrate distance (TSD) lies near the visible tip of the laser-induced plume, with deviations from this point expected to degrade film properties. We modified our PLD system to allow precise external TSD adjustment over a 110 mm range...
The QCD axion is a well-motivated hypothetical particle that offers simultaneous solutions to two major open questions in physics: the Strong CP problem and the nature of dark matter. If axions make up the dark matter halo of our galaxy, they may be detected through their resonant conversion into microwave photons in the presence of a strong magnetic field—a technique used in the axion...
Radiation therapy is an important component of cancer treatment. Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) is an experimental irradiation technique in which a synchrotron-generated X-ray beam is spatially fractionated into an array of quasi-parallel microbeams by a multislit collimator, leading to an inhomogeneous dose distribution in the target. In preclinical studies, this results in good tumor...
Spintronic devices offer fast, non-volatile, and more energy-efficient computing and memory compared to conventional electronic approaches. Compositionally complex oxides (CCOs) are an emerging class of materials for spintronic applications due to their low cost, robust magnetic stability, and high tunability. We are investigating $\mathrm{La(Cr_{0.2}Mn_{0.2}Fe_{0.2}Co_{0.2}Ni_{0.2})O_{3}}$...
The post-merger stage of a binary black hole coalescence is known as "ringdown", when the remnant settles into a stable state through the emission of quasi-normal modes. Analyzing ringdown signals from gravitational-wave events offers a powerful test of general relativity in the strong-field regime and provides an independent consistency check on the full waveform analysis. In this talk, I...
Converting disordered energy (heat) into ordered energy (work) is a fundamental objective in thermodynamics. In classical systems, disorder reflects practical limits on the knowledge of the microscopic state of a large system. Quantum systems, however, introduce an additional uncertainty arising from the fundamental structure of quantum mechanics [1]. Features such as coherence and...
Quantum measurements, alongside quantum states and processes, form a cornerstone of quantum information processing. The precise characterisation of this triad—of states, processes, and measurements—underpins how well quantum devices used across computation, communication, and sensing platforms can be calibrated, benchmarked, and ultimately trusted. However, while state and process...
Magnetic nanoparticles are used in biomedicine to treat and image cancer. This is because of their ability to generate heat within an alternating magnetic field and to track cells, respectively. Thus, it is important that their response to a magnetic field is simulated accurately to predict and understand their behaviour. However, simulations can be computationally expensive, so it is...
Why have we chosen to write yet another book on synchrotron light? After all, the classical physics of synchrotron-light emission is an established field, and many excellent books on the topic have already been published. In this talk we will present our recently published book and the educational approach we took.
Most existing textbooks on the subject either cover a wide range of...
The ability to tailor functional properties of complex oxide thin films through epitaxial engineering has opened new avenues for oxide electronics and spintronics applications [1]. Lanthanum strontium manganite (La$_{1-x}$Sr$_{x}$MnO$_{3}$, LSMO) is a half-metallic perovskite oxide exhibiting a strong coupling among lattice strain, magnetism, and electronic transport [2]. Epitaxial strain...
BACKGROUND: X-ray Computed Tomography dose levels have been varying among modalities and scanning body regions due to the absence of an incessant routine follow-up. Thus, the study aimed to compute the dose index discrepancies in Ethiopia for the most recurring scan protocols (head, chest, abdomen, and pelvis).
METHODS: Due to the rare existence of functional CT scanners in Ethiopia, a...
