John C. Mather
Senior Astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Ctr.

Anton Zeilinger
Professor of Physics, Univ. of Vienna
Director, Inst. of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Acad. of Sciences

From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to James Webb Space Telescope (PDF)

Abstract: The history of the Universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to the future—John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where sentient beings can live and how those beings are discovering their history. Mather was Project Scientist for NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which measured the spectrum (the color) of the heat radiation from the Big Bang, discovered hot and cold spots in that radiation and hunted for the first objects that formed after the great explosion. He will explain Einstein’s biggest mistake, show how Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe, how the COBE mission was built and how the COBE data support the Big Bang theory. He will also show NASA’s plans for the next great telescope in space, the James Webb Space Telescope. It will look even farther back in time than the Hubble Space Telescope, and will look inside the dusty cocoons where stars and planets are being born today. Planned for launch in 2013, it may lead to another Nobel Prize for some lucky observer.

Biography: Dr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As an NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City), he led the proposal efforts for the Cosmic Background Explorer (1974-1976), and came to GSFC to be the Study Scientist (1976-1988), Project Scientist (1988-1998), and the Principal Investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 parts per million, confirming the Big Bang theory to extraordinary accuracy. As Senior Project Scientist (1995-present) for the James Webb Space Telescope, he leads the science team and represents scientific interests within the project management. Dr. Mather is also Chief Scientist of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters, where he provides independent scientific advice on all aspects of the NASA science program. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006) with George Smoot, for the COBE work.

Photonic Entanglement and Quantum Information

Abstract: Research on entangled photons, originally motivated by questions on the foundations of quantum physics, gave rise to new experiments in quantum information science. Most recently, this includes long-distance quantum communication, quantum cryptography and all-optical quantum computation. Future trends include integrated micro-optics chips and satellite-based systems.

Biography: Anton Zeilinger works both experimentally and theoretically on the foundations of quantum physics. His central interests are its counterintuitive features and their consequences for experiment and possibly even quantum information technology. An essential focus of his work is entanglement, the deep connectedness of distant systems which Einstein called “spooky” action at a distance. He started the field of multi-particle entanglement, which has become a crucial ingredient for any future quantum computer. Another focus of his work is to investigate quantum features of massive particles and to study the transition between quantum mechanics and classical physics. Most recently, he began studies of the quantum behavior of real mechanical systems, like mechanical oscillators (micro-mirrors). Anton Zeilinger, born 1945 in Austria, has held positions at the University of Innsbruck, the Technical University of Munich, the Technical University of Vienna and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and distinguished visiting positions at Humboldt University in Berlin, Merton College of Oxford University and the Collége de France in Paris. Among his many awards and prizes are an honorary professorship at the University of Science and Technology of China and two honorary doctorates as well as the King Faisal Prize of Science, the German Order of Merit and a fellowship of the American Physical Society. Recently, he received the new international Isaac Newton Medal of the British Institute of Physics. Anton Zeilinger is currently Professor of Physics at the University of Vienna and Scientific Director of the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

James Bergquist
NIST
2008 Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science Recipient

Peter Knight
Imperial College London
2008 Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Endowment Recipient

Single-Atom Optical Clocks

Abstract: Although time is considered a fundamental concept by many physicists, and even though its unit of measure can be constructed from other physical constants, most often time serves as no more than an arbitrary parameter to describe the mechanics of motion. However, the pursuit of better time-keeping devices provides a natural means for studying various aspects of nature, including the fundamental constants and the interaction of radiation and matter. In recent years, several groups throughout the world have initiated research toward the development and systematic evaluation of frequency and time standards based on narrow optical transitions in laser-cooled atomic systems. I will discuss some of the key ingredients to the make-up and operation of single-atom optical clocks and why they offer higher stability and accuracy than the best clocks of today. I will then present some of the results obtained at NIST through comparative studies of the Hg+ single ion optical clock, the Al+ single ion optical clock and the Cs fountain, primary frequency standard (NIST-F1). The most recent frequency comparison between the Hg+ optical clock and NIST-F1 shows an uncertainty of ~9×10–16 limited by the integration time, and recent measurements of the frequency ratio between the Al+ and Hg+ standards show an overall uncertainty of several parts in 10–17. The extremely precise measurements of the frequency ratios of these clocks over time have begun to offer more stringent limits on any temporal variation of the fine structure constant as well as other tests of general relativity.

Biography: James C. Bergquist received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1970 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Colorado in 1977 (advisor, John Hall). Subsequent to an NRC postdoctoral appointment with David Wineland, he joined his research group at NIST in Boulder. In his research, Bergquist has concentrated on the laser cooling and spectroscopy of trapped atomic ions with applications to atomic clocks and fundamental tests. In 2000, he and his colleagues at NIST demonstrated the world’s first optical clock based on a single laser-cooled mercury ion. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. He has won the E.U. Condon award (NIST, 2001) for written exposition, the Department of Commerce Gold medal in 1985 for cooled-ion frequency standards (with J.J. Bollinger, W.M. Itano and D.J. Wineland) and again in 2001 for optical frequency standards and the means for relating their output to other frequencies (with S.T. Cundiff, S.A. Diddams, J. Hall, L. Hollberg, C.W. Oates and J. Ye), the William F. Meggers Award (OSA, 2002) for his contributions to “…high-accuracy laser spectroscopy with applications to fundamental metrology and clocks”, the Rabi Award (IEEE, 2006) for his contribution to the “…realization of accurate optical frequency standards”, and the Herbert P. Broida Award (APS, 2007) for his contributions to ultra-high resolution laser spectroscopy and the realization of accurate optical frequency standards.

Light, Photons and Nonclassicality (PDF)

Abstract: Quantum Optics has focused for many years on uncovering what is specifically nonclassical about light fields, from the early days of quantum mechanics right down to the present day. Much of this work has concentrated on the role of discreteness, of the limits of the uncertainty relation in governing fluctuations and the nature of quantum correlations beyond what is allowed classically. Progress in identifying, generating and characterizing nonclassical states has been spectacular. Quantum Information Science in part has grown out of this progress: the quantum world allows information to be encoded, manipulated and transmitted in ways quite different from classical physics. Parallelism and entanglement, the characteristic features of the quantum world, enable us to perform precise measurements and to undertake information processing tasks which are peculiar to the quantum world: secure encryption, teleportation of quantum states and the speed up of certain classes of algorithms. I will discuss the progress made in studying nonclassicality.

Biography: Peter Knight is Principal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College, where he has been a staff member since 1979, was Head of Physics from 2001 to 2005 and was knighted in 2005. He is a Past President of OSA. After earning his doctorate at Sussex, he was Research Associate in Rochester and held various fellowships in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the Optical Society of America and the Royal Society. Knight’s research centers on theoretical quantum optics, strong field physics and quantum information. In quantum optics his work focuses on nonclassical light (especially squeezed light); in strong field physics he works especially on high harmonic generation; and in quantum information science his work concentrates on the way quantum gates can be realized by quantum optical systems. He has been instrumental in setting up the new Grantham Institute for Climate Change. He is a Thomson-ISI “Highly Cited Author.”