Quantum Computation and Information Seminar 

17/05/2018, 17:00 — 18:00 — Abreu Faro Amphitheatre
Gerard J Milburn, University of Queensland and Imperial College

Engineering Quantum Causes

Are cause and effect objective facts about the world? Many philosophers doubt it. Physicists ground causation objectively in terms of Lorentz invariance: a central feature of quantum field theory. Yet the pioneers of quantum mechanics lamented the demise of classical causality and the violation of various Bell-like inequalities raise new questions. Nonetheless, advancing quantum communication technologies seek to exploit non classical quantum correlations to perform tasks impossible in a classical world. Quantum information theorists have recently discovered new quantum causal relations beyond Bell, yet the physical meaning of this discovery remains unclear. In this talk I will review some of the recent theories on classical and quantum causation and explain how ion trap quantum technologies might be used to engineer novel causal relations in a laboratory setting.