OSC Colloquium: Daniele Faccio, "Quantum Mechanics in Rotation"

Title

Quantum Mechanics in Rotation

Abstract

One of the outstanding remaining challenges in physics is the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics. It appears that the issue might lie with our partial understanding of both gravity and quantum mechanics, despite the fact that both have well established theories and sets of equations and have never to date, failed any tests. It therefore makes sense to continue to ask foundational questions, some of which date back more than 60 years. I will give an overview of some of these questions and ideas, specifically those that involve rotation in one form or another - starting from Penrose superradiance and the Zel’dovich proposal for measuring amplification from a rotating absorber to our recent proposals for generating entanglement from rotational motion.

Bio

Daniele Faccio is a Royal Academy Chair in Emerging Technologies, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy). He joined the University of Glasgow in 2017 as Professor in Quantum Technologies where he leads the Extreme-Light group and is Director of Research for the School of Physics and Astronomy. He is also adjunct professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson (USA) and fellow of the Optical Society of America. Previously he was at Heriot-Watt University and University of Insubria (Italy). He has been visiting scientist at MIT (USA), Marie-Curie fellow at ICFO, Barcelona (Spain) and EU-ERC fellow 2012 (StG) and 2023 (AdG). He was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Physics in 2015, the Royal Society of Edinburgh Senior Public Engagement medal and the Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award in 2017. He worked in the optical telecommunications industry for four years before obtaining his PhD in Physics in 2007 at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis (France). His research, funded by the UK research council EPSRC, DSTL, The Leverhulme Trust, the EU Quantum Flagship program and the Royal Academy of Engineering, focuses on the physics of light, on how we harness light to answer fundamental questions and on how we harness light to improve society through applications in healthcare.

Contact

Florian Willomitzer, Colloquium Chair & Professor: colloquium@optics.arizona.edu