Dr Alessio Serafini

Hello there,

I work in the quantum information group, with other decent chaps like Sougato Bose and Dan Browne.

My main research activity is centred on the sub-field of "continuous variable" quantum information; that is, essentially, on the study of quantum information in systems with infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. As you may guess, such an infinity has a way of making theoretical questions rather messy pretty soon.
Yet, fortunately, questions about continuous variable systems can be tackled for a restricted set of states ("Gaussian states"), which retains considerable interest.
The reason why we care about Gaussian states is that they are relatively easy to generate and manipulate in the lab, while still allowing for the realisation of several non-trivial quantum protocols (such as quantum teleportation, dense coding and key distribution) in a variety of physical systems (quantum light, atomic clouds, cold atoms and Josephson junctions to mention a few).
For Gaussian states, many questions which are extremely difficult in the general setting become treatable analytically (even if, as a cave at, one should stress that when entanglement is involved such questions are seldom trivial, even restricting to Gaussian states).
This is all good, as there are many problems still there to be tackled with reasonable means, with the added value that, every now and again, one might even manage to make statements about more general settings, beyond the Gaussian restriction.

Ah, I also co-lecture, with Prof. Jonathan Tennyson, the Maths III course (PHAS2246) for undergraduate students.

Starting from next year, you should find the course material on this webpage (currently on Prof. Tennyson's page at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/amopp/people/prof-jonathan-tennyson/2246