Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/N25077/01
Title:	STATISTICAL MECHANICS OF QUANTUM INFORMATION
Principal Investigator:	Kendon, Professor VM
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Physics
Organisation:	Imperial College London
Scheme:	Postdoc Res Fellowship PreFEC
Starts:	01 October 2000	Ends:	30 September 2003	Value (£):	125,842
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Quantum Optics & Information
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Electronics
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Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
I propose to investigate the collective properties of quantum information in the form of systems of interacting qubits such as might be used to make a quantum computer (but not restricted to any particular application). The interesting property exhibited by qubit systems that enables quantum computation (and many other applications) to take place is entanglement between two or more qubits, i.e., a superposition of different quantum states such that non-classical correlations arise between' the qubits. In particular, entangled systems can be used to encode information more densely than in classical systems, and this has led to the development of the field of quantum information theory.There is a rapidly growing base of results for systems consisting of a small number of qubits, generally in the form of exact results, or bounds and limits attained when many identical copies of the same system are available. However, the underlying theory of entanglement has yet to be fully generalised, and even the basic thermodynamics of such systems is an active line of research.I propose to look at entangled systems of qubits in the context of statistical mechanics. In other words, I am interested in the collective properties of such systems that are independent of the precise state of each qubit, but arise from the nature of the interactions between the qubits, and with the environment. From both a theoretical and practical point of view, interaction with the environment is a crucial part of the process. Theoretically, it determines the transition from quantum to classical behaviour, through decoherence of the quantum correlations. Practically, it severely limits the conditions in which quantum computation and other processes dependent on quantum properties can be carried out. The work proposed here draws most directly on the active research in quantum information theory and in non-equilibrium statistic mechanics for its starting points.
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