Wolfson Quantum Physics

"The Quantum College" is the nickname used by both local and visiting quantum theory researchers when referring to Wolfson.  The name's justified as the leading pioneers of the modern quantum theory of information conducted ground breaking research while at Wolfson.  This work set the agenda for large worldwide research efforts and created a new interdisciplinary field: Quantum Information Science.

The tradition of quantum theory research at the college were initiated by the very founder of modern quantum theory: the eminent Physicist David Deutsch, (FRS; winner of the 1998 Dirac Prize of the Institute of Physics; DPhil Wolfson College 1979).  David Deutsch's seminal paper invented the quantum computer!  He subsequently made or participated in many of the most important advances in the field, including the discovery of the first quantum algorithms, the theory of quantum logic gates and quantum computational networks and their diagrammatic notation.  These networks provided a compositional structure which can be used to represent and reason about any quantum state or process.  

Wolfson also places the 1991 DPhil thesis by Artur Ekert on it's quantum mantel. This thesis (and the resulting publications) showed how the quantum effects known as quantum entanglement and non-locality could be harnessed to distribute cryptographic keys with perfect security.  This generated a spate of new research that established a vigorously active new area of physics and cryptology, and is still the most cited work in the field.  Artur Ekert is now a Professor of Quantum Physics at the University of Oxford, and a Lee Kong Chian Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore and is also the Director and one of the founders of the Centre for Quantum Technologies - a large quantum theory research institute in Singapore.

Obtaining a DPhil in quantum computer algorithms in 1999 (while holding the Robin Gandy Junior Research Fellowship), Michele Mosca subsequently became the co-founder and the Deputy Director of the Institute for Quantum Computing Canada, and a founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He went to Wolfson College on a Commonwealth Scholarship, and received an MSc in mathematics and the foundations of computer science in 1996. He obtained a DPhil in quantum computer algorithms in 1999.  Prof Mosca is the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Computation.