News

Prize to Richard Kueng! September 9, 2017
Richard Kueng has been awarded Upper Austria's 2017 Talentförderprämie for the research he carried out while a member of the group. Congratulations, Richard, well deserved!
Prize for "Human Competitive" Genetic Algorithm July 20, 2017
The paper "Explaining quantum correlations through evolution of causal models" (which includes our very own Dr. Kueng as a co-author) has been awarded the 2017 prize for Human-Competitive Results Produced by Genetic and Evolutionary Computation.
David Gross speaker of advisory board of Assistant Prof Scoiety April 7, 2017
David Gross has been elected speaker of the advisory board of the German Society of Assistant Professors.
Prize to Ulrich Michel! April 5, 2017
Ulrich Michel receives the Dieter-Wohlleben Prize for the results of his research internship carried out in the group. Congratulations!
Mathematical Optimization and QI @ Bad Honnef September 26, 2016
Together with the Optimization Theory group headed by Frank Vallentin, we will organize a block seminar on Mathematical Optimization and Quantum Information Theory between August 7th and August 9th 2017 at the Physics Center in Bad Honnef. Interested graduate students should stay tuned for updates.
Rafael Chaves takes up professorship July 1, 2016
After almost four highly successful years as part of our group, Rafael Chaves has been appointed a full professor at the prestigious International Institute of Physics, Natal, Brazil. We congratulate Rafael and wish him and his family the best of luck at their new home! VisitInvite us often!
Thesis prize to Kai von Prillwitz June 16, 2016
Kai von Prillwitz has been awarded the 2016 Almuni Prize of the University of Freiburg for his thesis Statistical aspects of inferring Bayesian networks from marginal observations, which he wrote in our group. Congratulations, Kai!
New CRCs approved! May 25, 2016
Our group participates in a Collaborative Research Center (CRC / SFB) linking quantum information and condensed matter theory. It has been approved for funding today by the German Research Council. The project is run within the "transregional" scheme of the Research Council and includes groups from FU Berlin, the Weizmann Institute, and the University of Copenhagen. Remarkably, two quantum many-body-related CRCs by the Cologne Physics Department have been approved today (and no fewer than 4 of the 20 newly established programs go to Cologne!). Press release (German).
PhD and postdoc positions May 20, 2016
Launch of Rhineland Quantum Information Network May 1, 2016
The quantum information groups from Aachen, Julich, Düsseldorf and Siegen have launched the Rhineland Quantum Information Network - a platform for academic collaborations of the regional groups.
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Lukasz Rudnicki to participate Mar 23, 2016
Team member Lukasz Rudnicki will participate in this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Congratulations, Lukasz, for prevailing in the extremely competitive selection process!
Quantum Info @ BCGS Summer School. Apply now! Feb 15, 2016
We will organize a session on quantum information theory during the upcoming BCGS summer school. Interested Bachelor-level students from international and German universities are invited to apply. For a poster, click here.
Workshop on Finite Weyl-Heisenberg Theory Jan 26, 2016
Together with Goetz Pfander (University of Marburg), we are organizing a workshop on Finite Weyl-Heisenberg Systems. This structure appears in a variety of contexts, including quantum phase space methods, time-frequency analysis, and mobile communication and radar applications. The meeting will take place February 22nd - 24th at the Hausdorff Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. It is part of the ongoing Trimester Program on the Mathematics of Signal Processing. More details can be found here.
Workshop on Quantum Networks Jan 18, 2016
The first of a series of workshops on Quantum Bayesian Networks: The Physics of Non-Local Events will take place in Barcelona from March 30 - April 1, 2016.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers interested in causality within quantum physics and explore novel and exciting ideas that have emerged in the past year.
The series is a joint project between groups from Barcelona (ICFO), Oxford and us.

Registration is now open.
Project with University of Sydney Nov 17, 2015
The DAAD and Universities Australia have approved funding for a joint project on Structured Measurements for Compressed Sensing with the group of Steve Flammia at the University of Sydney. We are grateful to the Australia-German Joint Research Collaboration Scheme and look forward to tackling hard problems during the European winter.
The Impromptu Meeting on Quantum Foundations Oct 29, 2015
The quantum information groups from Duesseldorf and Siegen pay us a visit for a short meeting on quantum foundations.
"The Physics of What Happens" Jul 28, 2015
Our proposal Quantum Bayesian networks: the physics of nonlocal events, in collaboration with Antonio Acin (ICFO) and Matthew Hoban and Raymond Lal (Oxford), has been selected by FQXi for funding under the "Physics of what happens" grant scheme. It is a recent realization that many of the concepts and tools of causal discovery in machine learning are highly relevant to problems in quantum information, in particular quantum nonlocality.The aim of this project is to support and expand this nascent field through funding travel and workshops.
Federal assistance for tenure track positions? Press release Mar 30, 2015
In a remarkable and long overdue development, the German federal minister for education and research - Johanna Wanka - has outlined initial plans to support the large-scale adoption of tenure track arrangements for recruiting faculty members at German universities. Currently, the majority of professorships in Germany are filled with candidates who have gone through a lengthy habilitation process. The average age at first permanent appointment is above 42, with only a third of those who qualify through habilitation ever becoming permanently employed in the academia. We have expressed our strong support for the initiative of Johanna Wanka in a press release of the German Society of Assistant Professors.
Experimental Entanglement Polytopes IIFeb 19, 2015
Following up on the recent Brazilian experiment, a group centered in Hefei, China, with collaborators in Canada and Germany has performed a yet-more-sophisticated experimental implementation of our theory of entanglement polytopes. Great work!
Compressed sensing projects (SPP1798)
We have started a new DFG-funded research project on "Rank-Metric in Coding Theory
and Machine Learning" (with Martin Bossert, algebraic coding, Ulm). Also, our joint project proposal on "Bilinear Compressed Sensing" (with Peter Jung, telecommunication engineering, TU Berlin and Felix Krahmer, applied math, Göttingen) has been recommended for funding within the novel DFG Priority Programme 1798: Compressed Sensing in Information Processing. We are grateful to the DFG for their support.
Experimental Entanglement Polytope Test
A group of researchers in Rio and Goiania (Brazil) has performed a first experimental implementation of our theory of entanglement witnesses based on local spectral information. The implementation was performed in a photonic system. Their paper went online today on the arXiv e-print server.
Causality @ QIP
We'll present our work on Information-Theoretic Implications of Classical and Quantum Causal Structures as a talk at the upcoming Quantum Information Processing 2015 conference in Sydney. The yearly QIP conferences are arguably the most prestigious meetings in the field of quantum information, with an acceptance rate of around 15%.
On the Cover of PRL: Catalytic Coherence
Johan Aberg's paper on Catalytic Coherence is featured on the cover of Physical Review Letters. It has also been selected as an Editors' Suggestion.
Interview with SWR radio
On occasion of a conference on the topic, David Gross has been interviewed by SWR radio about the situation of assistant professors in Germany.
Rejuvinating German Academic Career Paths: Workshop in Berlin
We'll contribute to an upcoming meeting on career paths and the status of assistant professors in Germany. The workshop - Die Juniorprofessur zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit - will be held on the 29th and 30th of September in Berlin. Any interested party can register for participation.
Best Poster Award
Rafael Chaves has won the Best Poster Award of the Heraeus Workshop on "Quantum Contextuality, Non-Locality, and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" for the poster on our Causal Inference and Quantum Non-Locality project. Congratulations both to Rafael and to Lukas, who derived many of the results as part of his M.Sc. thesis.
Yesterday's news...
Yesterday's News from our previous home in Freiburg.