Peter Shawhan Elected APS Fellow

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Category: Department News

Published: Thursday, September 19 2019 11:07

Peter Shawhan has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was cited for the “development of techniques and algorithms to search LIGO data for transient signals, and for realizing the important future scientific implications of gravitational wave observations by looking for other signals developed by electromagnetic observations.”

Shawhan received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago, and was appointed a Millikan Prize Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. He continued at Caltech as a Senior Scientist before accepting a faculty appointment with UMD Physics in 2006.  Shawhan’s primary research for the past 20 years has been direct detection of gravitational waves with the LIGO and Virgo detectors, and he has held numerous leadership positions within the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, including Burst Analysis Working Group Co-Chair (2004-11) and LSC Data Analysis Coordinator (2017-present).  He was instrumental in establishing and nurturing a program of sharing prompt information about gravitational-wave event candidates with astronomers to allow them to look for corresponding signals in their instruments.  That groundwork enabled a remarkably rich campaign of astronomical follow-up observations and study, spanning the whole electromagnetic spectrum, when LIGO and Virgo detected the first binary neutron merger event, in August 2017.  That first event has provided scientific breakthroughs in fundamental physics, neutron star properties, high-energy astrophysics, and cosmology.  LIGO and Virgo are currently collecting more data and reporting more event candidates as they are identified.

Shawhan served as the Physics Associate Chair for Graduate Education from 2014-19 and is a member of the UMD-Goddard Joint Space-Science Institute and its Executive Committee. In addition, he is a past Chair of the Division of Gravitational Physics of the American Physical Society. Shawhan received the Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship from the UMD Department of Physics in 2016. He was the recipient in 2018 of the Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize and the USM Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Research.

Ray Phaneuf of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who holds an affiliate appointment in Physics, was also elected "for development of novel industrial applications of thin film techniques including coatings for the protection of cultural heritage objects against corrosion and directed-assembly of nanostructures on semiconductor surfaces."

Chris Monroe Wins Lamb Award

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Category: Department News

Published: Tuesday, September 17 2019 09:33

Christopher Monroe, a JQI Fellow, Distinguished University Professor, and Bice Seci-Zorn Professor in the Department of Physics at UMD, has received the 2020 Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics.

The award, which has been sponsored by the Physics of Quantum Electronics (PQE) conference since 1998, annually honors researchers who have made “outstanding contributions” to the study of lasers and their interaction with matter. Monroe, who is an expert in trapping atomic ions and harnessing them to process information, shares this year’s Lamb Award with Stephen E. Harris of Stanford University and Alexei Sokolov of Texas A&M University.

The three winners will be honored at the next PQE conference, which will be held January 5-10, 2020 in Snowbird, Utah.

Faculty Position in Theoretical Plasma Physics

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Category: Department News

Published: Wednesday, September 11 2019 02:45

The University of Maryland Department of Physics invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the level of Assistant Professor in theoretical plasma physics. A more senior level position may be considered for exceptional candidates. 

The Department has a broad research effort in plasma physics, including nonlinear dynamics, magnetic confinement fusion theory, plasma astrophysics, heliospheric plasma physics, and intense laser-plasma/laser particle-beam interactions. Our on-campus ties to astronomy, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, computer science, and quantum and applied physics complement our ties to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, both located nearby. The successful candidate will be a leader from any area(s) of theoretical plasma physics. The preferred starting date for the position is August of 2020.

Minimum requirements: A Ph.D. in physics or a physics-related discipline.  Good teaching, particularly in settings with diverse groups, is a high priority of the Department, and a potential for teaching excellence is necessary. Candidates should have a demonstrated ability to conduct independent research, have good communication skills, and have the potential for leadership within the research community. The University of Maryland and Department of Physics are committed to increasing the diversity of the campus community. Candidates who have experience working with a diverse range of faculty, staff, and students, and who can contribute to the climate of inclusivity are encouraged to identify their experience in these areas.

Only applications submitted through the UMD online site will be considered: https://ejobs.umd.edu/postings/73354

Required are (1) a cover letter, (2) a CV, (3) a statement of research interests and plans, (4) a statement of teaching philosophy and (5) the names and email addresses of four reference writers. For best consideration, applications should be received by December 1, 2019.

The University of Maryland, College Park, an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment. The University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, age, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, creed, marital status, political affiliation, personal appearance, or on the basis of rights secured by the First Amendment, in all aspects of employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.

Ions Clear Another Hurdle Toward Scaled-up Quantum Computing

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Category: Research News

Published: Friday, August 23 2019 10:02

Scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) have been steadily improving the performance of ion trap systems, a leading platform for future quantum computers. Now, a team of researchers led by JQI Fellows Norbert Linke and Christopher Monroe has performed a key experiment on five ion-based quantum bits, or qubits. They used laser pulses to simultaneously create quantum connections between different pairs of qubits—the first time these kinds of parallel operations have been executed in an ion trap. The new study, which is a critical step toward large-scale quantum computation, was published on July 24 in the journal Nature.  

“When it comes to the scaling requirements for a quantum computer, trapped ions check all of the boxes,” says Monroe, who is also the Bice-Sechi Zorn professor in the UMD Department of Physics and co-founder of the quantum computing startup IonQ. “Getting these parallel operations to work further illustrates that advancing ion trap quantum processors is not limited by the physics of qubits and is instead tied to engineering their controllers.” 

Ion traps are devices for capturing charged atoms and molecules, and they are commonly deployed for chemical analysis. In recent decades, physicists and engineers have combined ion traps with sophisticated laser systems to exert control over single atomic ions. Today, this type of hardware is one of the most promising for building a universal quantum computer.

The JQI ion trap used in this study is made from gold-coated electrodes, which carry the electric fields that confine ytterbium ions. The ions are caught in the middle of the trap where they form a line, each one separated from its neighbor by a few microns. This setup enables researchers to have fine control over individual ions and configure them as qubits.

Each ion has internal energy levels or quantum states that are naturally isolated from outside influences. This feature makes them ideal for storing and controlling quantum information, which is notoriously delicate. In this experiment, the research team uses two of these states, called “0” and “1”, as the qubit.

The researchers aim laser pulses at a string of qubits to execute programs on this small-scale quantum computer. The programs, also called circuits, are broken down into a set of single- and two-qubit gates. A single-qubit gate can, for instance, flip the state of an ion from 1 to 0. This is a straightforward task for a laser pulse. A two-qubit gate requires more sophisticated pulses because it involves tailoring the interactions between qubits. Certain two-qubit operations can create entanglement—a quantum connection necessary for quantum computation—between two qubits. 

Until now, circuits in ion trap quantum computers have been limited to a sequence of individual gates, one after another. With this new demonstration, researchers can now do two-qubit gates in parallel, creating entanglement between different pairs of ions simultaneously. The research team achieved this by optimizing the laser pulse sequences used to perform operations, making sure to cancel out unwanted laser-qubit interactions. In this way, they were able to successfully implement simultaneous entangling gates on two separate ion pairs.

According to the authors, parallel entangling gates will enable programs to correct errors during a quantum computation—a near-certain requirement in quantum computers with many more qubits. In addition, a quantum computer that factors large numbers or simulates quantum physics will likely need parallel entangling operations to achieve a speed advantage over conventional computers. 

Story by E. Edwards

In addition to Monroe and Linke, Caroline Figgatt, former JQI graduate student and scientist at Honeywell, was lead author on this research paper and provided background material for this news story. The research paper was published simultaneous to similar work done by former JQI postdoctoral researcher and Tsinghua University professor Kihwan Kim. 

REFERENCE PUBLICATION

"Parallel entangling operations on a universal ion-trap quantum computer," Caroline Figgatt, A Ostrander, Norbert M. Linke, Kevin A. Landsman, D Zhu, Dmitri Maslov, Christopher Monroe, Nature, , (2019)

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