User:Aeröwyn/Rupert Ursin

Rupert Ursin (born January 26, 1973 in Salzburg) is an Austrian physicist, Senior Group Leader and Deputy Director at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Education
While studying experimental physics in 1993, Ursin worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). He completed his Masters in 2001, then in December 2006 completed a PhD dissertation at University of Vienna on the subject: “Quantum teleportation over long distances,” after which he accepted a position with the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna. He began postdoctoral studies in 2007, and since 2013 has served as an IQOQI Research Group Leader.

Research


Ursin's research group is active in the field of quantum entanglement and communications. He has contributed to the foundations of quantum physics—demonstrating loophole-free Bell inequalities—as well as pioneering advances in quantum key distribution.

The group's interests include the intersection of gravity and quantum physics in microgravity and hypergravity experiments. Ursin also leads an international effort to bring a quantum physics experiment to the International Space Station (ISS) and develop quantum applications for space.

In 2012 Ursin joined an international collaboration with senior research scientist and NASA-trained commercial astronaut Christopher Altman to propose a novel demonstration of free-space quantum communications at an astronaut training base near the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Borne from collaborations initiated at the inaugural NASA Quantum Future Technologies Conference, their collaborative proposal, “Astronaut Development and Deployment of a Secure Space Communications Network” became part of an invited to submission to the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, then to the DARPA Quiness Macroscopic Quantum Communications program.

Achievements
In 2004, Rupert Ursin and several colleagues from the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna succeeded in demonstrating the first quantum teleportation of a photon outside of the laboratory, bridging a distance of 600 meters over the Danube.

In 2007, Ursin succeeded in distributing entangled photons between the Canary Islands La Palma and Tenerife over a distance of 144 km working together in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). Other partners have included the Universit of Munich, Bristol and Padua.

As reported in Nature Communications on 22 August 2016, the group successfully tested entanglement in accelerated reference frames.

Awards

 * 2009: Christian-Doppler-Prize

Literature

 * Rupert Ursin et al.: Quantum Teleportation across the Danube, Nature, 430, 849 (2004).
 * Rupert Ursin et al.: Entanglement-based quantum communication over 144 km, Nature Physics 3, 481 - 486 (2007).