When
Where
Nicole Yunger Halpern, NIST + Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science + University of Maryland
ABSTRACT: Thermodynamics has shed light on engines, efficiency, and time’s arrow since the Industrial Revolution. But the steam engines that powered the Industrial Revolution were large and classical. Much of today’s technology and experiments are small-scale, quantum, far from equilibrium, and processing information. Nineteenth-century thermodynamics needs re-envisioning for the 21st century. Guidance has come from the mathematical toolkit of quantum information theory. Applying quantum information theory to thermodynamics sheds light on fundamental questions (e.g., how does entanglement spread during quantum thermalization? How can we distinguish quantum heat from quantum work?) and practicalities (e.g., quantum engines and the thermodynamic value of coherences). I will overview how quantum information theory is being used to revolutionize thermodynamics in quantum steampunk, named for the steampunk genre of literature, art, and cinema that juxtaposes futuristic technologies with 19th-century settings.
BIO: Nicole Yunger Halpern is a Fellow of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS), a theoretical physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland. Nicole earned her Bachelors at Dartmouth College, where she graduated as a co-valedictorian of her class. As a Perimeter Scholars International (PSI) student, she completed her master’s at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Nicole earned her physics PhD under John Preskill’s auspices at the Caltech. Her PhD dissertation won the international Ilya Prigogine Prize for a thermodynamics PhD thesis. As an ITAMP Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard, she received the International Quantum Technology Emerging Researcher Award. Nicole is the author of the book Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday’s Tomorrow. She has also written over 100 monthly articles for Quantum Frontiers, the blog of Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter.
Dr. Halpern will also be a part of the Tucson Festvial of Books on Sunday, March 5.
The Future is Quantum!
Join author Nicole Yunger Halpern and moderator Jane Bambauer as they delve into how quantum physics is transforming how we think of information, energy and the future of our world.
Science City - Main Stage (Seats 195)
Sun, Mar 5, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Science / Medicine / Technology
Signing area: Sales & Signing Area - Science City (following presentation)
Panelist: Nicole Yunger Halpern
Moderator: Jane Bambauer