Category: News

Presented by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, the International Conference on Quantum Energy (ICQE) had its inaugural edition in Melbourne, Australia. The event explored the role of quantum mechanics in energy-related challenges, ranging from the energetic cost of computation to power conversion efficiency of photovoltaics technology. ICQE 2023 brought together experts from around the world, covering energy related topics across fundamental and applied disciplines, such as material science, light-harvesting, photochemistry, quantum information, quantum thermodynamics, and quantum chemistry.   The event saw the participation of Australia’s Chief Scientist, and renowned physicist, Dr Cathy Foley AO PSM, who delivered the opening keynote address. Other esteemed keynote speakers included Prof Gerard Milburn, Prof Alexia Auffèves and Prof Sir Peter Knight, who shared their ground-breaking work and latest insights. Prof Auffèves gave an update on the Quantum Energy Initiative and the QEI workshop 2023 that was held in Singapore in November. MSCA Fellow Dr Francesco Campaioli gave an invited talk on the progress of energy storage in quantum systems, based on the colloquium article on quantum batteries authored with Dr G. M. Andolina, Prof M. Polini, Dr J. Quach, and Dr S. Gherardini, recently released on the arXiv. Francesco was nominated co-chair for the next edition of ICQE, together with Prof Alexia Auffèves (Research Director at CNRS, Director of MajuLab in Singapore, Head of Quantum Energy Team), with the aim to bring the event to Europe in 2025.

Our researcher Ilaria and our Ph.D. student Marco participated in the final review meeting of the Quantum Computing for Earth Observation (QC4EO) project at the European Space Agency ESRIN headquarters in Frascati (Rome). The main goal of this study is to explore Quantum Computing potential advantages for Earth Observation applications. Our team collaborated with various project partners throughout, and during the final phase at ESRIN, they actively contributed to the concluding discussions and prospects.

Un gruppo di ricerca afferente al Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università di Padova (Dott. Alberto Ambrosetti, Prof. Pier Luigi Silvestrelli e Prof. Luca Salasnich), ha rivelato un fenomeno quantistico inatteso, in grado di consentire flusso di gas senza attrito attraverso sottilissimi nanotubi di carbonio Il lavoro è stato pubblicato sulla prestigiosa rivista Physical Review Letters. Così spiega il Prof. Salasnich: “L’esperienza diretta alle scale di grandezza umane dimostra inequivocabilmente che quando un fluido scorre attraverso un tubo, esso subisce una resistenza al moto, associabile alla forza di attrito. La resistenza diviene tanto più grande quanto più il diametro del tubo è stretto. Tuttavia, laddove le scale dimensionali vengano ridotte fino al nanometro (la miliardesima parte di un metro), la meccanica quantistica può assumere un ruolo chiave, e ciò può determinare fenomeni sorprendenti. Oggi, le tecniche più moderne consentono la fabbricazione su larga scala di tubi di carbonio sottilissimi, con diametri che possono agevolmente avvicinarsi al nanometro. Questi “nanotubi” di carbonio possono essere immaginati come un foglio di grafene arrotolato in forma cilindrica.” “Il nostro gruppo” -prosegue il Dott. Ambrosetti- “ha studiato in dettaglio il flusso di atomi di elio attraverso un nanotubo, rivelando sorprendenti analogie con la superfluidità – un meccanismo caratterizzato dal fisico sovietico Lev Landau negli anni 50′. Il meccanismo della superfluidità consente passaggio senza attrito di particelle attraverso un fluido ultrafreddo (detto superfluido). Noi abbiamo dimostrato che il nanotubo, pur essendo solido e non necessariamente ultrafreddo, può comportarsi a lato pratico come un mezzo superfluido: quando l’elio ha una velocità inferiore ad una soglia critica, gli urti contro il nanotubo vengono soppressi quantisticamente. Per l’assenza di urti l’elio non percepisce la corrugazione delle pareti del nanotubo ed è quindi libero di scorrere senza attrito. Si verifica in sintesi un superflusso.” “Tale superflusso” -conclude il Prof. Silvestrelli– “è consentito fino a temperatura ambiente, e risulta verosimilmente trasferibile ad altri fluidi, come ad esempio l’acqua. Il superflusso all’interno di nanotubi potrebbe completamente rivoluzionare fenomeni di trasporto e di attrito alla nanoscala, e consentirebbe la realizzazione di sistemi filtranti ad alta efficienza energetica – utili a contrastare la crescente carenza di acqua pulita in paesi in via di sviluppo.”

The Quantum Computing and Simulation Workshop took place from the 11th to the 13th of October 2023 and was hosted by the Istituto Veneto in the stunning Palazzo Franchetti, located right in front of the Venice Grand Canal. The workshop aimed to bring together key figures from the Italian and European quantum community, along with representatives from companies and startups working in the field of quantum science and technology. Attendance at the workshop was by invitation only, and it included participants from three prominent initiatives in Quantum Science: The Quantum Computing and Simulation Center (QCSC) The National Research Center on High-Performance Computing, Big Data, and Quantum Computing (ICSC) The European Quantera project T-NiSQ Additionally, several distinguished invited speakers attended the event. The primary focus of the workshop was on Quantum Simulation and Computation technologies. The discussions revolved around the latest implementations in the field, including quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms (such as Tensor Network), quantum simulation of high-energy and many-body systems, and potential industrial applications. The workshop program featured one scientific talk for each representative of the involved projects and a poster session where other participants could present their research. On the final day, Friday the 13th, there was a dedicated session on the industrial sector. This session included venture capitalists, startups operating in the realm of Quantum Science, and companies interested in this emerging technology. List of speakers: Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler (Mainz University) Tilman Pfau (Stuttgart University) Guido Pupillo (Strasburg University) Tommaso Calarco (Forschungszentrum Jülich) Karl Jansen (Desy) Enrique Rico (Ikerbasque) Mari Carmen Banalus (MPQ) Martin Ringbauer (Innsbruck University) Zala Lenarcic (Josef Stefan Institute) Scientific Committee: Giuseppe Calajò Marco Di Liberto Simone Montangero Flavio Seno Pietro Silvi

The first QuantHep conference took place in Bari, Italy and was focused around the question how Quantum technologies can help to address challenges in in High-Energy Physics. Included topics were quantum-inspired tensor network methods, lattice gauge theories, quantum complexity, and quantum computing solutions for high-energy physics. Members of the Quantum Group Padova participated with three talks and a poster presentation.

Our PhD students participated in the European Tensor Network Summer School in Abingdon, England. The aim of the school was to teach young researchers theory and implementation of tensor network algorithms. This is particularly important given the increasing number of groups working on this quickly evolving topic. The lectures were given by researchers who work actively both on the development and the application of tensor network based methods.

In the framework of the New Frontiers in Quantum Dynamics workshop at the Aspen Center for Physics in the Rocky Mountains, we learned about the current challenges for quantum dynamics from some of the world-experts and started to prepare our software for these challenges. We thank the US NSF via ACP and the Simons Foundation for their financial support to participate at the workshop.