POLONEZ at the Quantum Information Centre

Dr Martin Kliesch from the Freie Universität Berlin is the winner of the first POLONEZ competition announced by the National Science Centre (NCN). POLONEZ is a competition addressed to scientists from abroad who wish to work in Polish centres in the field of basic research. Since 1 December 2016 Dr M. Kliesch has been working on a two-year POLONEZ research project entitled “Compressed Sensing and Quantum Many-body Physics” (https://ncn.gov.pl/konkursy/wyniki/2016-05-18-polonez1, panel ST). Dr M. Kliesch’s scientific partner in the POLONEZ project is Prof. Dr hab. Michał Horodecki (UG’s Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics).

The project is being implemented at the Quantum Information Centre, a Sopot-based joint research centre (University of Gdańsk, Centre for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Gdańsk University of Technology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Jagiellonian University, University of Łódź, University of Wrocław) of the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of the University of Gdańsk (http://www.kcik.ug.edu.pl).

The project is financed from funds allotted to the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme to finance scientific research and innovation, on the basis of agreement no. 665778 to finance “Marie Skłodowska-Curie” activities.

Project research is focused on three issues: compressed sensing, open quantum systems and quantum thermodynamics. The recently developed idea of compressed sensing allows for the reconstruction of a signal with the help of small amounts of data. This is possible because realistic signals are generally compressible. Similar compression is also possible in realistic complex quantum systems. In this project the concept of compressed sensing will be employed in the construction of simulation tools for open quantum systems. This will in turn be used, amongst other things, in research into quantum states of well-defined temperature. Additionally the results of the quantum research will be used to expand the techniques of compressed sensing into new types of measurement or signal classes.

A description of the project in English is attached.