Quantum Technology
Quantum sensors and technology offer the route towards enhanced and novel experiments at the cutting-edge of particle physics. By exploiting quantum properties of matter, these technologies can be used to significantly improve the sensitivity of several type of detectors and to push them to their ultimate quantum-limited performance. Quantum technologies can either form the basis of novel and targeted searches for new physics or be embedded in existing detectors and experiments to dramatically their experimental reach. We are involved in a broad range of R&D activities towards these exciting future goals, and part of the international research effort. We are member of the CERN’s DRD-5 initiative towards research and development of quantum sensors, and we work with colleagues across the department within the Liverpool Physics’ Quantum Science and Technologies Development (QSTD) group to take advantage of interdisciplinary and complementary research skills.
Liverpool has been a key player in the development of major collaborations working towards strontium atom interferometers with unprecedented 100 m baselines, being a founding member of both the MAGIS and AION collaborations. These novel quantum sensors, operating at the intersection of atomic clocks and atom interferometers, will exploit the quantum nature of matter waves to probe the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and search for ultralight dark matter fields. We are developing the detection platform that will counteract Earth’s Coriolis force and imprint the interference pattern on the atoms for detector readout. Through these experiments and the TVLBAI collaboration, we are also working towards the development of future interferometers with kilometre baselines and towards satellite-based missions (e.g. AEDGE), leveraging our networks in the Liverpool City Region Space Partnership and the North West Space Cluster. Together these sensors will detect mid-band gravitational waves and offer a new window on the universe.
Working closely with our colleagues in the Theoretical Physics Department, we are also developing new projects for quantum sensors based on superconducting quantum interfering devices (SQUIDs). Due to their extreme sensitivity to magnetic fields, we will seek to utilise these SQUIDs to measure the dynamical Casimir effect and quantum back-action effects, search for dark matter candidates including axion-like-particles, and develop analogues of Hawking radiation from black holes.
Liverpool is also involved in a new collaboration seeking to exploit and further world-leading extreme-ultraviolet lasers to produce spin-polarised muons at the J-PARC facility in Japan. These muons will be used to increase the sensitivity of measurements of the muon’s magnetic and electric dipole moments, but also offer the opportunity to utilise muons in a definite quantum state towards penetrative quantum telecommunications and enhanced characterisation of novel quantum materials.
Academic Staff
- Prof Sergey Burdin
- Prof Gianluigi Casse
- Prof Jon Coleman
- Prof Monica D’Onofrio
- Dr Juri Smirnov (Mathematical Sciences)
- Dr Jonathan Tinsley
- Prof Graziano Venanzoni