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Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

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

Mixture equivalence principles and post-quantum theories of gravity
S Fedida, A Kent
(2024)
(link to publication)
Experimental practical quantum tokens with transaction time advantage
Y-F Jiang, A Kent, D Pitalúa-García, X Yao, X Chen, J Huang, G Cowperthwaite, Q Zheng, H Li, L You, Y Liu, Q Zhang, J-W Pan
(2024)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2408.13063)
(link to publication)
Origins of Symmetry in the Grasshopper Model
D Llamas, J Kent-Dobias, K Chen, A Kent, O Goulko
– Physical Review Research
(2024)
6,
023235
(doi: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.023235)
Time and distance constraints for mass and charge interferometry
A Kent
(2024)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.20507)
(link to publication)
Do small massive superpositions necessarily significantly entangle with gravity?
A Kent
(2024)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.20506)
(link to publication)
Should we necessarily treat masses as localized when analysing tests of quantum gravity?
A Kent
(2024)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.20514)
(link to publication)
Origin of Symmetry Breaking in the Grasshopper Model
D Llamas, J Kent-Dobias, K Chen, A Kent, O Goulko
(2023)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2311.05023)
(link to publication)
Towards practical quantum position verification
G Cowperthwaite, A Kent, D Pitalua-Garcia
(2023)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2309.10070)
The measurement postulates of quantum mechanics are not redundant
A Kent
(2023)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2307.06191)
Friendly thoughts on thoughtful friendliness
A Kent
(2023)
(doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2302.12707)
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Research Groups

Cantab Capital Institute for the Mathematics of Information
Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations

Email

A.P.A.Kent@damtp.cam.ac.uk

Room

B0.18

Telephone

01223 760379

Personal homepage

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/apak/

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge