UQ physicist Professor Guifre Vidal has been named by Canada’s Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics (PI) as one of 10 new Distinguished Research Chairs.
Professor Vidal joins an existing 10 Distinguished Research Chairs, who include Professor Stephen Hawking, making 20 positions internationally.
As a Distinguished Research Chair (DRC), Professor Vidal will spend extended research visits at PI each year, becoming part of their research community while retaining his position at UQ.
Perimeter Institute Director Neil Turok said Professor Vidal was among researchers who had made remarkable and creative contributions to key areas of modern physics.
"We are witnessing a very exciting moment in the areas of condensed matter and computational physics, fresh ideas from quantum information science offer new ways of addressing long-standing problems in many-body physics, and I hope this opportunity will increase our chance of finally solving some of these problems, Professor Vidal said.
Professor Vidal has made important contributions to the development of quantum information science, with applications to condensed matter theory, and has been recognised in Australia by the Australian Research Council as a Federation Fellow.
His research explores the phenomenon of entanglement, the renormalization group, and the development of tensor network algorithms to simulate quantum systems.
This opportunity will continue to provide strong research links between PI and the UQ School of Mathematics and Physics
UQ School of Mathematics and Physics has recently signed an agreement with the PI called Perimeter Institute - Australia Foundations Collaboration (PIAF), to strengthen collaborative research in quantum foundations — along with The University of Sydney and Griffith University.
Both Canada and Australia have emerged as hubs of scientific enquiry in quantum foundations and the closely related areas of quantum information and quantum computing.
UQ's School of Mathematics and Physics is internationally renowned for its contribution to quantum physics theory and experimental research. It has provided the PI with many researchers and staff over the years, and is home to many of Australia’s quantum physicists.
Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) is an independent, non-profit, scientific research and educational outreach organization where international scientists cluster to push the limits of our understanding of physical laws and develop new ideas about the very essence of space, time, matter and information.
Located in Waterloo, Ontario, PI also provides a wide array of award-winning outreach resources and public lectures for students, teachers and the general public in order to share the joy of research, discovery and innovation.
For more information about the Perimeter Institute visit www.perimeterinstitute.ca.
Media: For more information about the Distinguished Research Chair position please contact Professor Vidal (phone: 336 51869 ) or Lynelle Ross, Communications and Marketing (l.ross@smp.uq.edu.au or 3346 9935)
.jpg)
