Speaker & Abstracts

Jessica Bavaresco (CNRS & Sorbonne University, France)

Jessica Bavaresco is a research faculty member at the computer science institute LIP6 of Sorbonne University and CNRS, in Paris, where she has led a group working on higher-order quantum computing and quantum foundations since 2025. She obtained a PhD in Physics from the University of Vienna in 2021, following an internship at the University of Tokyo in 2019, and subsequently held postdoctoral positions at IQOQI Vienna and at the University of Geneva, where she was awarded an SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her work on quantum correlations, which started with topics such as joint measurability, Bell nonlocality, and entanglement theory, currently focuses on quantum correlations in networks and in signaling scenarios. In higher-order quantum computing, her interests are in applications of this formalism to tasks such as channel discrimination, metrology, and purification, and in more foundational questions such as the certification and simulation of indefinite causal order.

Quantum vs. Classical correlations

This lecture will explore the fundamental differences between classical and quantum correlations across a range of operational scenarios. We will begin with the standard Bell nonlocality framework in the nonsignalling setting, highlighting how quantum theory can produce correlations that cannot be reproduced by classical resources, and how this gap enables device-independent certification of entanglement. We will then move to quantum network scenarios, where the constraint of multiple independent sources gives rise to more intricate distinctions between classical and quantum correlations, revealing new forms of nonclassicality. Finally, we consider signaling scenarios that go beyond a fixed causal order and in which noncausal correlations can arise. In this regime, although quantum correlations still exhibit advantages over classical ones, classical resources can already outperform causally ordered models, leading to a different perspective on the classical–quantum boundary.

Radim Filip (Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic)

Professor Radim Filip specializes in quantum optics, interaction of light with atoms and nanoparticles, quantum optomechanics, quantum optical communication, and quantum information processing. Professor of optics and optoelectronics in the Department of Optics, Faculty of Science, Palacky University in Olomouc. Author or co-author of more than 130 articles for high-impact journals, including Nature Physics, Nature Communication and Physical Review Letters. Most of his methodology proposals have been experimentally implemented. He oversees an international team of young scientists and students involved in quantum physics and quantum technologies.

Markus Müller (IQOQI Vienna)

Markus Müller received his PhD in Mathematical Physics at TU Berlin. After a postdoc position at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, he became a Junior Group Leader at Heidelberg University, and then an Assistant Professor (Canada Research Chair) at the University of Western Ontario, jointly appointed in the Applied Maths and Philosophy Departments. He has been at IQOQI Vienna since 2017, where he is now leading a Quantum Information and Foundations of Physics group. He still doesn’t know whether he is a physicist, mathematician or philosopher (probably none of the three).

Probabilistic theories and generalized contextuality: when is a physical system genuinely quantum?

In these notes, I give a brief introduction to (a useful part of) the formalism of generalized probabilistic theories, and I introduce Spekkens‘ notion of generalized contextuality. Then I show how both can be used together to verify that data taken in the laboratory proves contextuality, without assuming the validity of quantum theory. Finally, I give a quick outlook (via one or two examples) on how some general concepts from both topics (convex sets of correlations etc.) are the basis of protocols with „quantum advantage“, e.g. scenarios that admit the generation of certified random numbers.

Eugene Polzik (Niels Bohr Institute & University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

Eugene Polzik is professor of physics at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and the leader of QUANTOP – Quantum Optics Center. His research interests are within quantum physics of matter and light, quantum communication, quantum sensing, and quantum information technologies. Among his notable results are demonstration of the quantum teleportation between material objects, a quantum memory for light, an optical detection of radio waves using a nanomechanical oscillator, a quantum optical interface with a cold atomic crystal, and measurements of motion and fields not restricted by the Heisenberg uncertainty.

Measurements Beyond Standard Quantum Limits and Their Applications

This short course will begin with introduction of standard quantum limits for measurements of fields and forces using macroscopic spin and mechanical sensors. We will then discuss ways to overcome those limits by generation of squeezed and entangled states of light and matter. Basic quantum interactions between light used to generate non-classical states and read them out, such as the beam-splitter interaction, the two-mode entangling interaction and the quantum non-demolition interaction will be introduced. Specific physics of such interactions for the cases of spin ensembles and mechanical oscillators will be presented. Particular ways of overcoming standard quantum limits of sensing using spin squeezed states and measurements in the negative mass reference frame will be outlined. Finally, applications of those approaches to magnetometry, magnetic induction tomography and gravitational wave detection will be presented.

Giulia Rubino (University of Bristol, United Kingdom)

Giulia Rubino is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University of Bristol. She received her MSc from the University of Rome „La Sapienza“ in 2015. She did her PhD at the University of Vienna under the supervision of Prof. P. Walther. In 2021, Giulia became a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, supported by a Newton International Fellowship from the Royal Society. In 2023, she was awarded a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellowship to continue her research at the interface of quantum technologies and quantum foundations, and, in 2024, she became a Lecturer in Quantum Technologies. In her current role, Giulia leads a research team focused on the application of quantum technologies to quantum foundational experiments, as well as quantum information theory and quantum thermodynamics.

On the limits of device-independence in indefinite causality: from foundations to applications

Indefinite causal order (ICO) can provide operational advantages over fixed causal structures, yet fully device-independent (DI) certification — on par with Bell nonlocality — remains unresolved. In this talk, I will analyse a necessary assumption underlying DI tests of ICO: closed-labs (CL), which requires each party to interact at most once with a signal-mediating system. Unlike in Bell scenarios, this constraint is essential to rule out ordinary two-way signalling explanations of ICO correlations. Crucially, the CL condition is device-dependent, introducing a fundamental vulnerability: untrusted devices could secretly violate it and mimic an ICO via hidden two-way signalling. I will show how this loophole can be resolved by embedding a minimal set of experimental components with well-defined operational roles, enabling a direct test of the CL assumption within ICO certification protocols. This allows ICO correlations to be verified without trusting the devices that generate them. This framework establishes robust, operationally meaningful DI tests of ICO, suitable for cryptographic and self-testing applications, and clarifies conceptual distinctions between indefinite causality and nonlocality.

Andrew White (University of Queensland, Australia)

Andrew White is a Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. He is the Director of both the Quantum Technology Laboratory, which he founded in 1999, and the National Advanced Photonics Facility, as well as a Node Leader of the Australian Research Council Training Centre in Current and Emergent Quantum Technologies.Following his doctoral research at the Australian National University and the University of Konstanz in Germany, he worked as a Postdoctoral Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA, before returning to Australia to join the University of Queensland.
Renowned for pioneering some of the world’s first experimental quantum logic gates, as well as high-performance single-photon generation and foundational methods for quantum state tomography, his research lies at the interface of photonic quantum optics and quantum information science, integrating experimental quantum computing and communication with studies of both practical quantum technologies and fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics.