Professor Adrian Kent

Career

Professor of Quantum Physics, DAMTP, University of Cambridge

Fellow, Wolfson College, Cambridge

Director of Studies in Mathematics, Darwin College, Cambridge

Distinguished Visiting Research Chair, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario

Affiliate, Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, Ontario

Research

Member of the Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations in DAMTP. Current research interests include:

* the relationships between fundamental principles of quantum theory and other physical theories and information theoretic tasks. Examples include the Barrett-Hardy-Kent quantum key distribution protocol, the first secure device-independent key distribution scheme based on the no-signalling principle and relativistic quantum protocols for bit commitment based on the no-summoning theorem of relativistic quantum theory.

* the quantum reality problem, and specifically finding theories that respect special relativity and quantum theory and that also supply an explicitly realist ontology.

* the physics of decoherence and its implications for fundamental physics

* novel tests of quantum theory and alternative theories

* new cryptographic applications of quantum information

* new scientific applications of quantum information.

Co-edited "Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory and Reality", (Oxford University Press, 2010), and contributed a chapter comparing and contrasting one-world and many-worlds quantum theory. It shows that we can (despite the claims of many Everettians) find a satisfactory account of the scientific treatment of one-world theories involving apparently random data, while that there is no satisfactory parallel treatment of many-worlds theories. It also points out some apparently insuperable problems with recent attempts to describe how many-worlds theories can be confirmed or disconfirmed by evidence, and explains why recent attempts to derive the Born rule from Everettian quantum theory fail.

More details of past and present research can be found on my personal website.

Selected Publications

Most of my publications since 1994 are on the physics arxiv. See my personal website for more information.

Publications

Signature characters for the Virasoro algebra

A Kent

– Physics Letters B

(1991)

269,

315

(doi: 10.1016/0370-2693(91)90177-r)

Highest weight representations of the N = 3 superconformal algebras and their determinant formulae

A Kent, M Mattis, H Riggs

– Nuclear Physics, Section B

(1988)

301,

426

(doi: 10.1016/0550-3213(88)90435-X)

Determinant formulae for the N = 4 superconformal algebras

A Kent, H Riggs

– Physics Letters B

(1987)

198,

491

(doi: 10.1016/0370-2693(87)90905-1)

Conformal invariance, current algebra and modular invariance

A Kent

– Physics Letters B

(1986)

173,

413

(doi: 10.1016/0370-2693(86)90406-5)

Determinant formulae and unitarity for the N = 2 superconformal algebras in two dimensions or exact results on string compactification

W Boucher, D Friedan, A Kent

– Physics Letters B

(1986)

172,

316

(doi: 10.1016/0370-2693(86)90260-1)

Unitary representations of the Virasoro and super-Virasoro algebras

P Goddard, A Kent, D Olive

– Communications In Mathematical Physics

(1986)

103,

105

(doi: 10.1007/bf01464283)

Some comments on the ADHM construction in 4k dimensions

E Corrigan, P Goddard, A Kent

– Communications in Mathematical Physics

(1985)

100,

(doi: 10.1007/BF01212684)

Virasoro algebras and coset space models

P Goodard, A Kent, D Olive

– Physics Letters B

(1985)

152,

(doi: 10.1016/0370-2693(85)91145-1)

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

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