Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Quantum Control of Chaotic Systems The realization that quantum mechanics allows the possibility of encoding and processing information in a way that can improve and extend classical information processing, has led to the emergence of the new field of quantum information science. By applying the laws of quantum mechanics to information theory, novel tasks such as teleportation have been designed, and new algorithms for computation that outperform known classical algorithms have been developed. In order to build large-scale quantum information processing devices, it is necessary to  prepare, manipulate and measure many-body coupled quantum systems. These coupled systems can exhibit  non-classical correlations or 'entanglement' in the quantum regime and chaos in the classical regime. Signatures of the classical chaos can be found in the corresponding quantum system in quantum properties such as entanglement. This research will investigate and analyze the control of quantum systems which are classically chaotic, and explore the possibility of exploiting chaotic behaviour to improve information processing protocols or efficiently  generate valuable quantum computing resources such as entanglement. It will also investigate noise and decoherence in chaotic systems, and error correction in the presence of chaos. The research will involve analytical as well as numerical techniques, and will model and analyze realistic physical systems in order to develop a theoretical framework of quantum control that can be usefully implemented. This program will not only help to ultimately develop tools for building efficient quantum information processing devices, but will also provide key insight into fundamental questions about quantum measurement and the relationship between quantum and classical theory. Canadian researchers are already making important contributions to quantum information science, and this research will help strengthen Canada's role as a leader in the field.