Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · 2d

Congrats to the three new physics Nobel laureates, who helped lay the groundwork for superconducting quantum computing. As always, nobelprize.org has a great technical summary of the results that won the prize and the wider research context
www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...

Nobel Prize in Physics 2025

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electri...

www.nobelprize.org

1 1

Reposted by QuIT Physics

Jake Xuereb @curlyqubit.bsky.social · 7d

Amazing to see the work of @itsmealeale.bsky.social and Partyk L Bartosik highlighted like this.

Having followed it as it was written and knowing the hard work that was poured into it, really brings a smile to one's face to see it highlighted.

Yes to detecting entanglement using thermodynamics!

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine

“Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

www.quantamagazine.org

1 2 5

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · 13d

Yet another new preprint from Philipp this week! Here, he and his colleagues introduce a full quantum model for bright squeezed vacuum pulses on femtosecond timescales in strongly light-driven nonlinear media

arxiv.org/abs/2509.19608

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · 15d

New preprint! Here Philipp takes a look at the connection between high harmonic generation and Bose-Einstein condensates, asking what happens to a BEC when it's hit by an intense, short laser pulse

arxiv.org/abs/2509.19022

High harmonic generation from a Bose-Einstein condensate

Lasers provide intense coherent radiation, essential to cool and trap atoms into a Bose-Einstein condensate or can alternatively drive the non-linear dynamics of high-order harmonic generation. Yet, t...

arxiv.org

1

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · 16d

Does our Research Unit endorse the view expressed by our employee here that "so much quantum tech is way over-hyped"? 🤔🤔🤔🤔

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · 16d

New from me at @scishow.bsky.social! In news stories, why do quantum computers look like a 'steampunk chandelier'? Well, turns out: that's not the computer!

(But that's all just setup for my rant at the end about how so much quantum tech is way over-hyped 👀👀👀)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhou...

Quantum Computers Look Like Chandeliers. This is Why.

YouTube video by SciShow

www.youtube.com

1 3

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Sep 5

New PRL! Moha and his collaborators show how any set of n measurements on CV systems can be made compatible with the right loss channels, but also that no loss channel can break the incompatibility of all measurements.

journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

Measurement Incompatibility under Loss

We investigate the measurement incompatibility of continuous-variable systems with infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces under the influence of pure losses, a fundamental noise source in quantum optics,...

journals.aps.org

7

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Sep 4

New preprint! Here, Shuheng, Marcus, and Giuseppe find Schmidt number witnesses for continuous-variable systems, connecting entanglement witnessing to the world of phase space quasiprobabilities

arxiv.org/abs/2509.02743

Entanglement Dimensionality of Continuous Variable States From Phase-Space Quasi-Probabilities

The dimensionality of entanglement is a core tenet of quantum information processing, especially quantum communication and computation. While it is natural to think of this dimensionality in finite di...

arxiv.org

1 5

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Aug 28

Alberto has a new preprint out today: here he looks at the optimal ways to extract work from two-level systems using thermodynamic protocols

arxiv.org/abs/2508.19341

Optimal Finite-Time Thermodynamics of Effective Two-Level Systems

The optimization of the conversion of thermal energy into work and the minimization of dissipation for nano- and mesoscopic systems is a complex challenge because of the important role fluctuations pl...

arxiv.org

1 2

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Aug 25

New preprint from Manu, Max, and Marcus. With their colleagues they designed a minimal model of a quantum measuring device to study an important question: does it take more entropy production to extract better quality information from a measurement?

arxiv.org/abs/2508.16375

Quantum detectors as autonomous machines: assessing the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of information acquisition

We formulate a minimal model of a quantum particle detector as an autonomous quantum thermal machine. Our goal is to establish how entropy production, which is needed to maintain the detector out of e...

arxiv.org

4

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Aug 13

THREE new preprints out from Philipp:

-A theory of above-threshold ionisation w/ squeezed light:
arxiv.org/abs/2508.01621
-A link between attosecond interferometry & weak values:
arxiv.org/abs/2508.09048
-An open-systems approach to non-linear light emission
arxiv.org/abs/2508.09049

Good stuff!

5

Reposted by QuIT Physics

Tom Rivlin @tomrivlin.com · Jul 30

New preprint! Really excited about this. It's some of my best work ever, IMO: an analytic and numerical study of the Wigner's Friend problem(s) with a specific model of the measurement process and a decohering environment.

arxiv.org/abs/2507.21221

Emergence of Classicality in Wigner's Friend Scenarios

The Wigner's Friend (WF) thought experiment concerns quantum measurements by a 'superobserver' of an observer measuring a quantum system. Variations on the setup and its extended versions have seen a ...

arxiv.org

1 2 10

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jul 29

New in Light: Science & Applications: Florian joins a team presenting experimental results for a quantum key distribution method that relies on discretely-modulated continuous variables, including security proofs and more

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Experimental composable key distribution using discrete-modulated continuous variable quantum cryptography - Light: Science & Applications

We demonstrate the first four-state DM CVQKD system generating composable secure keys over 20 km fiber, marking progress toward practical, high-performance, cost-effective, and highly secure QKD netwo...

www.nature.com

2

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jul 29

Thanks to Physics World for this fab write-up of the work by our group members, including some lovely quotes from lead author Florian

Physics World @physicsworld.bsky.social · Jul 17

According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, making a clock more precise means adding energy + increasing waste heat. The more precise the clock, the more entropy increases – and the tighter the limits on the clock’s precision become.

Unavoidable? Maybe not! 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/how-to-kee...

How to keep the second law of thermodynamics from limiting clock precision – Physics World

Certain types of quantum clocks could circumvent thermal dissipation, say physicists

physicsworld.com

2 11

Reposted by QuIT Physics

Jake Xuereb @curlyqubit.bsky.social · Jul 29

(1/3) Updated on the arXiv this morning! No more painful typos and new appendices. One comparing our sample complexity with that of classical probabilistic approaches and another providing a recipe for oracles to prepare thermal machines.

arxiv.org/abs/2505.15887

1 1 7

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jul 3

Nice piece that ends with a nice quote from our very own Max!

Physics World @physicsworld.bsky.social · Jul 3

One hundred years after quantum mecahnics was created, Matin Durrani reveals what happened at the Helgoland 2025 cetnenary conference, which saw more than 300 top quantum physicists gather on the tiny German island. 🔭🧪⚛️

physicsworld.com/a/helgoland-...

Helgoland 2025: the inside story of what happened on the 'quantum island' – Physics World

Matin Durrani reports from the Helgoland 2025 conference marking 100 years of quantum mechanics

physicsworld.com

2

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jul 3

Congrats to QuITter Phila Rembold on being awarded an FWF ESPRIT award! Among other things, she'll be using her expertise in quantum optimal control to develop new techniques for entanglement estimation, sensing and metrology 🥳🥳

www.fwf.ac.at/forschungsra...

Projektdetail

www.fwf.ac.at

8

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jul 3

New PRL! Here, Florian and Marcus propose a new framework for computing key rates in quantum key distribution, for the tricky case of high-dimensional entanglement

journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

Practical Framework for Analyzing High-Dimensional Quantum Key Distribution Setups

High-dimensional (HD) entanglement promises both enhanced key rates and overcoming obstacles faced by modern-day quantum communication. However, modern convex optimization-based security arguments are...

journals.aps.org

6

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jun 25

New preprint from Alberto: how long do quantum systems take to thermalise? Here the authors show that quantum theory imposes a fundamental lower bound on this time!

arxiv.org/abs/2506.19188

An information-theoretic proof of the Planckian bound for thermalization

We demonstrate that quantum mechanics entails a fundamental lower bound on the thermalization time $τ$ of any system. At finite temperature, we show that $τ$ is bounded by half the Planckian dissipati...

arxiv.org

5

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jun 13

New preprint: Moha and colleagues get into the swing of things with a study of the thermodynamics of... pendulum clocks?

...oh, right! QUANTUM pendulum clocks!

arxiv.org/abs/2506.10666

2

Reposted by QuIT Physics

Jake Xuereb @curlyqubit.bsky.social · Jun 13

(1/n) Today on the arXiv, we examine the folklore that cooling a quantum system with access to another requires one to order their joint state eigenvalues in decreasing order and find that this sorting is actually dictated by a simple set of inequalities.

scirate.com/arxiv/2506.1...

1 2 14

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jun 2

This paper is now out in Nature Communications! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

2

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · Jun 2

This paper is now out in PRL! journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

2

Reposted by QuIT Physics

Jake Xuereb @curlyqubit.bsky.social · Jun 2

Deep congratulations to the whole team but especially to Florian on what I'm sure is only his first Nature Physics paper.

I am also super happy to see the Malta - Vienna connection crystallized in such a paper facilitated by @aspects-quantum.bsky.social

Florian Meier @mathsmire.bsky.social · Jun 2

What started as informal discussions on the Danube beach in Vienna during QTD2023 has been published at last. Trying to come up with an experimentally feasible quantum clock we came across a rich model – the ring clock – that overturned a common wisdom in the community. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Copyright by Alexander Rommel / TU Wien.

1 6

Reposted by QuIT Physics

Florian Meier @mathsmire.bsky.social · Jun 2

What started as informal discussions on the Danube beach in Vienna during QTD2023 has been published at last. Trying to come up with an experimentally feasible quantum clock we came across a rich model – the ring clock – that overturned a common wisdom in the community. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

1 6 13

QuIT Physics @quitphysics.info · May 25

And here you can read Yuri explain the result in his own words to Der Standard (auf Deutsch!)

www.derstandard.at/story/300000...

Verborgene mathematische Verbindung zwischen gegensätzlichen Teilchen entdeckt

Bosonen und Fermionen hängen auf bisher unbekannte Weise zusammen. Die einen ähneln eher Schneeflocken, die anderen Sandkörnern

www.derstandard.at

2