Événements

Publié le 24 septembre 2019

Premier Colloquium du C2N : Alain Aspect, le 11 Octobre 2019

Le C2N a le plaisir d'organiser son premier colloquium le 11 Octobre prochain (à 10h30), dans son Amphithéâtre au coeur du campus Paris-Saclay. Il accueillera pour cette occasion Alain Aspect, Professeur à l’Institut d’Optique Graduate School et à l’École polytechnique, Directeur de recherche CNRS émérite au Laboratoire Charles Fabry (CNRS/Institut d'Optique), membre de l’Académie des Sciences et de l’Académie des Technologies, et lauréat de la médaille d'or du CNRS en 2005. Alain Aspect est invité à présenter ses recherches de grand intérêt pour la communauté scientifique sur les technologies quantiques.

Sa présentation sera la première d’une série de Colloquia du C2N, organisés autour de la venue de grandes personnalités scientifiques. Elle s'adressera à une audience large, et aura pour thème :

 

From Einstein’s questions to quantum information:
a new quantum revolution

Abstract: In 1935, with co-authors Podolsky and Rosen, Einstein discovered a weird quantum situation, in which particles in a pair are so strongly correlated that Schrödinger called them “entangled”. By analyzing that situation, Einstein concluded that the quantum formalism is incomplete. Niels Bohr immediately opposed that conclusion, and the debate lasted until the death of these two giants of physics. In 1964, John Bell discovered that it is possible to settle the debate experimentally, by testing the now celebrated «Bell’s inequalities», and to show directly that the revolutionary concept of entanglement is indeed a reality. A long series of experiments, started in 1972, yielded more and more precise results, in situations closer and closer to the ideal theoretical scheme. After explaining the debate, and describing some experiments, I will also show how this conceptual discussion has prompted the emergence of the new field of quantum information and quantum technologies.

Bio: Alain Aspect is a physicist, distinguished scientist and professor at Ecole Polytechnique and Institut d’Optique graduate School. Alain was the first to experimentally confirm the non-local character of quantum entanglement, a bizarre area of quantum mechanics that perplexed Einstein and many others. This understanding has led to applications of quantum mechanics beyond the lab scale, towards quantum computing and provably secure communications. Alain and his collaborators have also made breakthroughs in laser cooling of atoms, Bose-Einstein condensates, and cold atom simulation of the celebrated Anderson localization.

Le séminaire sera suivi d'une discussion entre Alain Aspect et les étudiants, puis d'un cocktail déjeunatoire servi dans le hall d'entrée du C2N.