Seminar: A quantum wheel of fortune

Abstract: It is well known that the time evolution of the quantum harmonic oscillator is identical to that of its classical counterpart. So it came as a surprise (at least to me) to find an unnoticed preprint by Tsirelson [1] claiming that one can base a certification of non-classicality on just observing that evolution in a smart way. In this talk, I shall explain Tsirelson’s idea and review the follow-up works done in my group, finishing with the first experimental demonstration of this protocol [2].

[1] B. Tsirelson, https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0611147
[2] A. Vartjees et al., Newton 1, 100017 (2025), https://www.cell.com/newton/fulltext/S2950-6360(25)00009-X

Speaker: Valerio Scarani is Professor at the Department of Physics and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (currently serving as deputy director) at the National University of Singapore. Over the years, his theoretical works has covered several areas, notably quantum cryptography and Bell nonlocality (a topic for which he has written a comprehensive treatise, Oxford University Press 2019), from foundations to collaborations with experimental groups.