Quantum Shorts is an annual public engagement competition organised by the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore and involving many scientific partners, including the UK’s own National Quantum Technologies Programme (via its outreach arm – Quantum City). The competition alternates each year between short films and flash fiction and this year, it’s all about the films!

After the Quantum Shorts film festival launched its call for entries in September 2022, filmmakers responded with 232 quantum-inspired films from 58 different countries – the most in the film festival’s history. The festival now presents its nine finalists.

The finalists hail from Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each film gives a different take on quantum physics in less than five minutes. Viewers will see dancers perform an interpretation of the observer effect, abstract audiovisual pieces probe space and time, and the many-worlds interpretation made into quantum comedy, among others.

"As a scientist, it was astonishing to see the range of interpretations of quantum physics: from entangled human feelings, over quantum as a form of destiny, to hypothetical future catastrophes,” says shortlisting judge Mariagrazia Iuliano at QuTech. “It is also impressive to experience how a rigid and strict physical model – which cannot be experienced in daily life – is brought to life in artistic movies.” 

For making the shortlist, these entries win a one-year digital subscription to Scientific American and a USD 250 screening award. The finalists could be up for more honours. The First Prize and Runner Up of the festival will now be decided by Quantum Shorts’ eminent judges. You could have a say too. We invite you to cast your vote for the People’s Choice prize. Voting is now open on the Quantum Shorts website and closes at 11:59 PM GMT on 27 March 2023.

To enjoy the films, dive straight into them via the festival website at shorts.quantumlah.org, where you
can also find interviews with the filmmakers revealing behind-the-scenes stories.

In alphabetical order, the shortlisted films are:

• Boundary Of Time – Using old-school visual effects techniques, Director Kevin Lucero Less creates a metaphor for the arrow of time in this abstract short film
• Missed Call – A student grapples with his father’s health crisis at a distance in this short by Director Prasanna Sellathurai
• The Heart of the Matter – Filmmaker Betony Adams presents an atomistic take on the meaning of life while paying tribute to Louis de Broglie’s discovery of the wave nature of electrons
• The Human Game – Director Dani Alava portrays a dystopian future with quantum machines 
• THE observer – An artistic take on the observer effect through screendance, a hybrid medium of cinematography and choreography, by Director Alma Llerena
• WHAT IS QUANTUM? – Using a combination of live action, green screen and stop-motion animation, Michael, Emmett and Maxwell Dorfman give their take on what quantum physics is.
• Clockwise – Inspired by Zeno’s Paradox and the recursive subdivision of space and time, Director Toni Mitjanit presents an experimental audiovisual piece of colour and tessellation
• Continuum – In this audiovisual film, the StoryBursts team, consisting of members from Australia and Singapore, give a creative response to research on gravitational waves by Dr Linqing Wen at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav)
• Many Excuses Interpretation – In this quantum comedy by Paul, Felix, Alfie, Petra and Ezra Ratner, two brothers argue over broken gadgets and the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics

Congratulations to the finalists!

Visiting New Scientist Live

Carlos Nino Sandoval is studying at the University of Birmingham for a PhD in Physics. Before this, Carlos completed his undergraduate degree in Physics in Colombia, and his master’s degree in Engineering in Germany, and then spent nine years working in multisectoral companies and organisations coordinating projects around metrology – the science of measurements - for national and international markets.
 

New Scientist Live is the perfect way to bring together new technological challenges and innovative applications. There are lots of applications on show and exhibitors are always willing to answer any questions. The audience is varied with children, students and adults. I noted how some of the visitors were surprised by the simple and clear way of explaining the science. It doesn't matter how old you are, and how much knowledge you have about something – if you have the motivation to ask, then you have made the first step in science.

Among the exhibits which received much attention was Quantum City, an exhibit hosted by the four Quantum Technology Hubs, part of the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme. For many of the visitors, Quantum City marked the first time viewing applications related to quantum science. Researchers from the Quantum Communications Hub, Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing and National Physical Laboratory at the Quantum City exhibit managed to capture the attention of students and adults alike by explaining the scientific background of the research in clear detail, as well as how the technologies will be used in the real world.  

One of the demonstrators which drew many visitors was presented by Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing researchers. This demonstrator uses quantum sensor technology for brain sensing: the development of this technology seeks, among other things, to study brain diseases in a more precise and non-invasive way. This study offers greater tools to understand this type of disease and, over time, develop more effective treatments.

National Physical Laboratory also presented at the Quantum City exhibit with several experiments around metrology, showing how quantum technology has been used to establish new standards in measurements.

New Scientist Live offered a wide variety of exciting innovative technologies for different sectors. For example, how robots will soon be able to perform high-risk surgeries with greater precision. And also, how prevention technologies will help prevent disastrous explosions, such as the detection of early gas leaks.

New Scientist Live is taking place again in 2023. You can register your interest to receive more information about the next event at the New Scientist Live website: https://live.newscientist.com/register-interest-new-scientist-live-2023.

Radars are being installed at the top of an engineering building at the University of Birmingham as part of a demonstration intended to test and prove the precision of quantum-enabled radar detection capabilities.

A key part of keeping everyday life secure is being able to detect dangerous or unsafe situations before they occur. Quantum enabled radar technology research, undertaken by School of Engineering academics at the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, aims to do precisely this.

The Quantum Technology Hub is led by the University of Birmingham and partnered with the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Sussex, Imperial, Nottingham, Southampton as well as the National Physics Laboratory and the British Geological Survey. It has a close focus on industrial collaboration and partnership and. in line with this, the radars are being developed and installed by Aveillant, a radar technology company whose mission is to move radar technology into the information age by powering a full digital picture of the sky.

The radar technology being exhibited at the demonstration is dependent on the Hub’s compact atomic clock oscillators., housed on campus. These oscillators provide the high precision and low signal noise required for the radar to detect small, slow moving objects, such as drones, at longer distances, and even in cluttered environments.

Radar detection is a deceptively complex necessity in the modern world: it is required for a surprisingly wide range of sectors. For example, high precision radar will ensure autonomous vehicles can detect hazards well ahead of time. Hub academics are also developing next generation distributed radar systems, which will transform surveillance by providing much greater coverage and maintaining real-time situational awareness in highly congested and cluttered environments.

The EPRSC-funded project Mapping and Enabling Future Airspace (MEFA), led by academics at the Department of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering, will also benefit hugely from the radar installation. MEFA is a three-year interdisciplinary project bringing together radar experts from across the University to study the use of urban airspace. The project will investigate how radar can be used to study the effects of urban developments on migrating birds, and also to differentiate between flying birds and small drones. Data collected during the radar installation will be incredibly beneficial for the MEFA project.

Professor Chris Baker, Chair in Intelligent Sensor Systems at the University of Birmingham, School of Engineering, said: “By putting in place this highly sophisticated world-leading technology, we and our partners can explore a wide range of advance, novel networked radar surveillance concepts.”

Dr Dominic Walker, Chief Executive Officer of Aveillant, added “We are delighted that our Holographic Radars are being used in this programme. At Aveillant we are always looking to push the boundaries of our technology, and working with some of the UK’s leading academic institutions such as the University of Birmingham, is allowing us to do just that.”

This article was originally posted on the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing website. 

A new research project aimed at improving railway navigation technology in an effort to reduce train delays and increase passenger experience has been launched at the University of Birmingham.

The project aims to tackle one of the rail sector’s biggest challenges: how to pinpoint the accurate location of a moving train. Overcoming this challenge is key to ensuring fewer train delays and increased passenger safety.

The University of Birmingham-led UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing and the University of Birmingham’s Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) are joining forces to solve this problem.

Experts from both centres will collaborate to develop a system for quantum-enabled navigation, which is a standalone system capable of capturing highly accurate measurements without reliance on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), which will help engineers ensure the health of the railway track and passenger ride comfort.

“The system we are developing will have gravity map-matching capabilities, allowing engineers to understand what is happening underneath the track as well as the train’s movement,” explains Professor Clive Roberts, Director of BCRRE at the University of Birmingham, and Co-Investigator for the Navigation work package at the Quantum Technology Hub.  “The quantum sensors will provide highly accurate measurements that will help to detect the rate of change of the track, and subsequently, any deteriorations which might lead to faults.”

Professor Costas Constantinou, Chair of Communication Electrodynamics and Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer at the University of Birmingham’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, said: “Our dependence on GPS can leave navigation systems vulnerable to spoofing or, more frequently, loss of positioning due to weak network signals – a particular challenge when trains are moving through tunnels, for example.

“Our standalone navigation system does not rely on satellite signals and is therefore not exposed to the same external risks experienced by GNSS.

As part of the project, field tests will take place on the test track at Long Marston, in Warwickshire early next year, where sensors will be installed on a purpose-built stabilisation platform in a train.

Industry collaboration is central to the Quantum Technology Hub’s goal of translating science into real-world applications, and Hub academics are working with Network Rail and other international railway organisations to bring precise navigation to the rail sector.

The UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, which partners with the Universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Southampton, Nottingham, Sussex, Imperial College London, NPL and the British Geological Survey, is also actively developing quantum inertial navigation systems for use on ships and cars. The Hub’s aim is to create robust systems to support the services which make up the UK’s critical national infrastructure, including transport, civil engineering and communications.

This article was originally posted on the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing website. 

A new class of optical clocks are set to revolutionize timekeeping by offering a level of precision that significantly exceeds standard atomic clocks, say leading experts at the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, which is led by the University of Birmingham.

These new so-called optical lattice clocks can be used to test the limits of gravity to a high level of precision and also enable further study of the Earth’s geodesy, comment Dr Yeshpal Singh and Professor Kai Bongs in an article published in Nature.

In the article, Dr Singh and Professor Bongs discuss how Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which explains gravity as a “consequence of the curvature of space-time that is deformed by mass”, has been held as the “best theory of gravity we currently have” since it was published in 1915.

Dr Singh, of the University of Birmingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy and academic lead for quantum clocks at the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing, said: “It has not yet been possible to unify the theory of relativity with quantum field theory, meaning that there is not yet a complete theory of nature”.

“For instance, dark energy and dark matter - subjects used to describe observations of an accelerating expansion of the Universe contradicting predictions from Einstein’s theory - remain unexplained.

“So how do we develop more precise tests of relativity? At the Quantum Technology Hub, my team and I are working closely with industry to develop portable, robust quantum clocks, which aim to give ultra-precise, ultra-accurate time to more than one billionth of a second.

“These clocks, along with the rest of the sensor technology in development at the Hub, are specifically being created to be robust and transportable, capable of performing in deployable conditions. Once developed, quantum clocks can be implemented in a number of sectors, such as in finance, navigation, and even space.”

Optical Lattice clocks were first proposed by Professor Hidetoshi Katori at the University of Tokyo in the early 2000s.  They store atoms tight enough to remove unwanted Doppler frequency shifts, hence allowing long interrogation times, and not interfering with the frequency of the clock transition.

The clocks will also present an opportunity to test general relativity and geodesy. This will be done by placing clocks at differing heights to determine the geoid height via a frequency comparison between the clocks, providing competition with the best geophysical approaches.

One example is the recent breakthrough by Professor Katori and his team, when two portable, robust optical clocks were created, with precision surpassing many of the best clocks available in the world. A six-month long measurement campaign was undertaken to achieve results comparable with the “best space tests of general relativity, and open[ing] up fascinating new applications on Earth using such clocks”.

Professor Katori and his team’s impressive achievement, and the potential of optical lattice clock projects all over the world, paves the way for exciting industrial collaboration with researchers at the Quantum Technology Hub to revolutionise oil and mineral exploration, ultra-precise satellite navigation systems and performing time synchronization for quantum communication networks.

This article was originally posted on the UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing website.