The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $218 million in funding for 85 research awards nationwide in the important emerging field of Quantum Information Science (QIS). The awards were made in conjunction with the White House Summit on Advancing American Leadership in QIS, highlighting the high priority that the Administration places on advancing this multidisciplinary area of research, which is expected to lay the foundation for the next generation of computing and information processing as well as an array of other innovative technologies.
University of Wisconsin, Madison Physics Department, in collaboration with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was awarded one of these awards. This will be a collaboration between subatomic physicists (Balantekin, Palladino), and quantum information physicists (Coppersmith, Saffman) in the Physics Department. The project will explore the ways in which quantum computing and information processing provide insights into dark matter, particularly dark matter detection and neutrino physics. The P.I. of the award, Prof. Baha Balantekin said “This is a transformative project for the UW Physics Department, combining several subdisciplines of physics which represent core competencies of the Physics Department. We expect the effort to substantially grow beyond the initial funding period to strengthen the UW leadership in this frontier area.”