Raising The Bar
Quantum technology has several applications where practical use cases have great potential. Apart from the obvious ones that will raise the bar for tasks requiring an extremely high level of combinatorial optimization, there are some others that are not so obvious, like space exploration.
Monica Hernandez, a writer specialized in quantum for the space industry, has written some insightful articles/interviews for TQD that cover the quantum trends and technological innovations in that sector.
As far as research initiatives go, Quantum Cosmos Lab — a scientific group at the Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland — is doing some impressive work in this area.
Quantum Cosmos Lab
A group of theoretical physicists who are traversing the “interface between quantum mechanics and gravitational physics, with possible ventures into advanced technologies”, their main research focuses on quantum gravity and quantum cosmology, nonlinear phase space field theories, the phenomenology of quantum gravity, quantum gravity on quantum computers, and gravity/entanglement duality, although the space nerds out there will be excited to know the group is also busy on research in quantum space technologies.
This, the group believes, will usher in
“quantum key distribution via artificial satellites, which one day may allow us to entangle the world with a network of secure quantum channels — the so-called quantum internet.”
With over fifty published papers to date ranging from the Quantum simulations of a qubit of space to Universe from vacuum in loop-string quantum cosmology, Quantum Cosmos Lab’s research IP is a great storehouse of future ideas.
And the papers are only the start of it:
With seven projects in the group’s portfolio, four already completed and three ongoing from benefactors like the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the National Science Centre Poland, the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), Frontiers in Physics, and the QISS project funded by the John Templeton Foundation, the Quantum Cosmos Lab have obviously proved they are experts in their field.
Building A Bridge Away From Academia
All this wouldn’t have been possible without Jakub Mielczarek, founder and principal investigator of Quantum Cosmos Lab. An assistant professor specializing in the fields of quantum gravity and quantum cosmology at the Theory of Complex Systems Department of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, his latest focus areas are on the “observational consequences of the Planck scale physics, simulations of quantum gravity on quantum computers and compact phase space extensions of the field theories, including gravity”.
Mielczarek is not just a dusty old academic. He realizes some of his research has uses in the commercial world, too:
“Some projects that interested me (mostly concerning space technologies and other new technologies) go beyond the basic research and cannot be limited to the academic dimension only. Therefore, it was natural for me to gradually enter more and more into the domain of entrepreneurship. Over the last few years I have been involved into a couple of technological projects. One of them was the construction of the Lunares basis designed to conduct simulated manned space missions and to test relevant technologies.”
With a team that includes a co-investigator, a post-doctoral researcher, two Ph.D. students and an administrative assistant, the Quantum Cosmos Lab is well staffed to boldly go where no quantum initiative has gone before.
Period.
For more market insights, check out our latest quantum computing news here.
