QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

The discussions at and around the next summit of the European Union heads of states and governments, which is scheduled for 22 and 23 November, will be decisive in determining the EU research budget for the next seven years. Several Member States are demanding severe cuts on the total EU budget and research will have to compete with other policy priorities.

This is a time when we, the scientific community, should act together and make our case to protect research funding, including that of the European Research Council (ERC), from cuts. Decisions will be prepared in discussions among politicians at the national level. All of us must look for opportunities to affect these decisions and send a strong signal to the Heads of State or Government.

An open letter signed by European Nobel laureates has been published in top European newspapers this week. The impact of this letter will be increased if it is followed by a mobilization of the national scientific communities.

I suggest we support these initiatives, for example, in the following ways:

• speak at events we may be attending to make the case for the ERC and the budget for Horizon2020
• use contacts that we or our colleagues may have in political parties or in the media to inform and mobilise our communities and others
• ask the leaders of any professional society to which we belong to bring this call to action to the attention of the society's members.

An online petition has been launched to keep the momentum going:

http://www.no-cuts-on-research.eu

I would like to ask you to sign it and to encourage your research group members and colleagues to do likewise. Note that in the past less than 30 000 scientists signed the largest petition for a scientific cause in Europe compared to the hundreds of thousands of signatures on petitions from other groups of society. We must do better than that.

Following QIPC2009 in Rome and QIPC2011 in Zurich we have the pleasure to announce another edition of the QUANTUM INFORMATION PROCESSING AND COMMUNICATION CONFERENCE – QIPC2013.

Chairs: Marco Bellini, Francesco S. Cataliotti, Augusto Smerzi (Firenze, Italy)

With support from

QSTAR
Joint MPQ, IIT, LENS, UniFi Center for Quantum Science and Technolog

 EU-FP7 Coordination Action
QUIE2T - Quantum Information Entanglement-Enabled Technologies

In recent years many new and advanced techniques of investigation have been developed in different areas of Physics which can now be combined together to realize new and yet unexploited possibilities. Control of the Quantum State of the fundamental constituents of light and matter has become a reality; at the same time the ability to realize artificial materials with precisely engineered properties is progressing towards the single atom level. In this scenario, thanks to the combination of all these new capabilities, unprecedented directions of research for fundamental and applied physics based on purely quantum phenomena arise.

Following QIPC2009 in Rome and QIPC2011 in Zurich we have the pleasure to announce another edition of the

QUANTUM INFORMATION PROCESSING AND COMMUNICATION CONFERENCE – QIPC2013

QIPC 2013 will cover:

Quantum information and quantum communication.

Physical realizations of quantum systems for information technology such as photons, single atoms, ions, molecules, nuclear and electron spins, superconducting circuits, micro- and nano-mechanics, hybrid quantum systems, degenerate quantum gases.

Topical subjects such as foundations of quantum information, quantum measurements, quantum interferometry, cavity QED, optical lattices, quantum memories, many-body systems.

Abstract Registration: April 1st 2013
Early Registration: April 15th 2013

The reports are available for public download at the WP2 deliverables page. They contain a detailed description of the features that are integrated in the qurope.eu web site, that allow a classification and analysis of the database material that is relevant to QIPC.

The update is expected for the end of the QUIE2T project, i.e. Feb 2013. It is expected that the QIPC Roadmap and the Quantum Information Classification Scheme are going to see a new major revision within the next few months.

The round table is organized during the ICAP 2012 conference, and is one of the highlights of several special events. This public event is sponsored by the 'Quantum Envoy' program of the Coordination Action QUIE2T.

The Charles Hard Townes award was established in 1980 to honor Charles Hard Townes, a pioneer in the field of masers and lasers, whose contributions led to the development of quantum electronics. It is awarded to a researcher or a group of researchers for outstanding experimental or theoretical work within the field of optics and quantum electronics.

This year it has been given to Philippe Grangier for "major advances in fundamental quantum optics, based on the invention or development of methods and experimental techniques that have led to innovative applications in quantum information".

Philippe Grangier, who is a QUIE2T WP leader and an AQUTE PI, is research director at CNRS since 1988 and leads the group of Quantum Optics Laboratory Charles Fabry, UMR CNRS and the Institut d'Optique Graduate School. He is also professor at the Ecole Polytechnique. 

After making many experimental studies on non-classical properties of light (single-photon states, squeezed states, QND measurements), it is currently using the methods and tools of quantum optics in the broader context of treatment quantum information, one goal is to perform simple logic operations acting on "quantum bits" or qubits. 

He is also a board member of the IFRAF, and of the Scientific Council of the start-up SEQURENET, which operates the applications of his work in quantum cryptography.

Further details

http://www.ifraf.org/a-la-une/article/philippe-grangier-recoit-le-prix (in French)
http://www.osa.org/Awards_and_Grants/Awards/Award_Description/charlestownes/

The citation reads

"Professor Walmsley has made a number of contributions to the fields of quantum optics and ultrafast optics, including pioneering experimental work in areas as diverse as quantum state tomography and ultrashort pulse characterization. His work has had a broad impact across areas from coherent control to quantum information processing. In particular he has developed methods and concepts applying ultrashort light pulses to the study of nonclassical phenomena in both atomic and optical physics, developing widely used methods for the characterization of both quantum and classical wave fields, which have broad implications across a range of areas from dynamical spectroscopy to quantum state measurement. "

The on-line version of the document can be browsed here.
A pdf of the full document will be generated following this link.
Old versions of the QICS are archived here.