Media Releases

Ranier Blatt wins Bell Prize for trailblazing quantum research

August 10, 2015

TORONTO, ON — On August 20th, 2015, world-renowned quan­tum physi­cist Rain­er Blatt will be award­ed a pres­ti­gious prize for his con­tri­bu­tions to the devel­op­ment of quan­tum infor­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies, dur­ing the Con­fer­ence on Quan­tum Infor­ma­tion and Quan­tum Con­trol being held at the Fields Insti­tute at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. The fourth bien­ni­al John Stew­art Bell Prize for Research on Fun­da­men­tal Issues in Quan­tum Mechan­ics and Their Appli­ca­tions, admin­is­tered by U of T’s Cen­tre for Quan­tum Infor­ma­tion & Quan­tum Con­trol, has been award­ed to Pro­fes­sor Blatt, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Inns­bruck, by an arms’-length selec­tion com­mit­tee of inter­na­tion­al experts, “for his pio­neer­ing research on quan­tum infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing with trapped ions, in par­tic­u­lar, for the recent demon­stra­tions of ana­log and dig­i­tal quan­tum sim­u­la­tors and quan­tum log­ic gates on a topo­log­i­cal­ly encod­ed qubit.”

A com­put­er that exploits the strange fea­tures of quan­tum the­o­ry is extra­or­di­nar­i­ly more pow­er­ful than any sil­i­con-based com­put­er. This dis­cov­ery of the mid 1990’s trig­gered a race to devel­op so-called quan­tum com­put­ers. One of the most promis­ing tech­nolo­gies for quan­tum com­pu­ta­tion is trapped ions (i.e. charged atoms). Pro­fes­sor Blatt is a pio­neer and leader in this tech­nol­o­gy.

Pro­fes­sor Blatt will accept the award and deliv­er a lec­ture about his work, open to the pub­lic, at 1:30 pm on Thurs­day August 20th, in the main audi­to­ri­um of the Fields Insti­tute.  More infor­ma­tion about the Bell Prize can be found at http://cqiqc.physics.utoronto.ca/bell_prize/home.html and more infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence is at http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/15–16/CQIQCVI/

Con­tact infor­ma­tion:

Amr Helmy (Direc­tor, CQIQC)
(416) 946‑0199

Aephraim Stein­berg (vice-chair, Bell Prize selec­tion com­mit­tee)
(416) 978‑0713