Physics Department News
Approaching the fundamental limit of quantum sensing with imperfect detectors
In a work appearing on the cover of Physical Review Letters, volume 125, issue 8, the group of Animesh Datta, with collaborators at the University of Nanjing, China and the University of Ottawa, Canada, have shown that even noisy and saturating detectors can approach shot-noise-limited detection if used judiciously. Shot-noise-limited optical detection is the first, and often the most challenging, step to quantum-enhanced optical sensing. This work uses a technique called weak-value amplification and enables, over a range of input light intensity well beyond the dynamic range of the photodetector, shot-noise-limited detection. Weak-value amplification relies on the principle that only a subset of the photons contains almost all of the information about the sensed object.
Neil Wilson wins Royal Microscopic Society award
Congratulations to Neil Wilson for winning the RMS Mid-Career Scientific Achievement Award for 2020.
The aim of the RMS Mid-Career Scientific Achievement Award is to celebrate and mark outstanding scientific achievements in any area of microscopy or flow cytometry for established, mid-career researchers.
WATE PGR Success
Three Physics postgraduates have been recognised by the University for their excellence in teaching.
Sam Holt of the Superconductivity and Magnetism group is the winner of a Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence, and Jack Bradshaw (CFSA) and Sam Ferracin (Theory) received commendations.
Congratulations to all.
Thermonuclear blast sends supernova survivor star hurtling across the Milky Way
An exploding white dwarf star blasted itself out of its orbit with another star in a ‘partial supernova’ and is now hurtling across our galaxy at 900.000km/h, according to a new study led by Boris Gänsicke from the Warwick Astronomy and Astrophysics group, published today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. It opens up the possibility of many more survivors of supernovae travelling undiscovered through the Milky Way, as well as other types of supernovae occurring in other galaxies that astronomers have never seen before. Have a look at the Warwick press release press release and the paper for free on arXiv.