This dissertation consists of two parts: Part I, Precision Measurements with a Ruby Laser; and Part II, A Quantum Mechanical Paradox.The two parts represent the results of two non-related areas of study by myself while a graduate student.My attention was directed primarily to a study of photographic emulsion blackening produced by high power laser pulses.At one point a prolonged equip ment failure halted progress in Part I.During this time I did the work described in Part II.The topic of Part II was suggested to me by my major professor, Dr. James D. Macomber, who ran across the problem while teaching a course.
This dissertation consists of two parts: Part I, Precision Measurements with a Ruby Laser; and Part II, A Quantum Mechanical Paradox.The two parts represent the results of two non-related areas of study by myself while a graduate student.My attention was directed primarily to a study of photographic emulsion blackening produced by high power laser pulses.At one point a prolonged equip ment failure halted progress in Part I.During this time I did the work described in Part II.The topic of Part II was suggested to me by my major professor, Dr. James D. Macomber, who ran across the problem while teaching a course.
My time at Michigan has tremendous impacts on me, and for this I would like to thank many. My advisor, Professor Massoud Kaviany, led me into the exciting area of heat transfer physics, and encouraged me to take risks to explore new topics. I was allowed sufficient freedom to decide where the project should direct, while I could still benefit a lot from his insight and expertise. I am grateful to him for training me in every aspect to become a scholar. My committee member, Professor Stephen Rand, taught me a great deal when I was a newcomer to optics, and offered to meet with me many times all through my Ph.D. study, to discuss questions in my research. The other members of my committee, Professors John Kieffer, and David Reis, have provided support during the dissertation process. Professors Mahta Moghaddam, Gerard Mourou, Stephen Rand, David Reis, Duncan Steel, and James Wells taught courses that were very helpful to me for learning optics, quantum mechanics, and condensed matter physics. I would also like to thank the valuable discussions or
Certain quantum many-body physics problems, such as the transverse field Ising model are intractable on a classical computer, meaning that as the number of particles grows, or spins, the amount of memory and computational time required to solve the problem exactly increases faster than a polynomial behavior.However, quantum simu-I would like to thank my advisor, Professor James Freericks, for all the help and guidance he provided me throughout my time at Georgetown University.I know I am not the easiest person to work with and I imagine at times it was frustrating.I have learned a significant amount about quantum computing with trapped ions, unfortunately one thing that I still need to work on is my atrocious writing.Beyond the opportunity of doing research with Professor Freericks, he has also given me the opportunity to mentor many undergraduates.I have enjoyed every minute of my work.It has been a privilege and an honor working with you.Of course, I would not have gotten as far as I did without the help from my fellow classmates.Thanks to my classmates: Alan Pasha Tabatabai, Khadijeh "Sona" Najafi, and Oliver Albertini, who got me through the first and second year courses.I passed solid state II and the comprehensive exam because of these three classmates.As for the older graduate students, thanks to Jesús Cruz-Rojas who helped me stay motivated during my research blues stage.Although, we were quite prone to discussing random algorithms and other projects that did not have anything to do with our research.
This thesis is dedicated to my dearest wife, Yingyan, who has been a constant source of inspiration and support through all stages of my life since high school, and to our lovely boy, Logan, who came to our family just before the thesis was finished. iv Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank my advisor Professor Jonas Zmuidzinas for giving me the opportunity to work on this great project of MKID. I came to Caltech in 2002 and originally planned to work in the field of optics. Failing to join any optics group on campus, I luckily ran across Jonas in a talk on MKID he gave to the students in applied physics major. These detectors made of resonators immediately attracted my interest. I still remember the interview that took place at Jonas ’ office. Desperate to join a research group, I was advertising how good I was in both theory and experiment. At some point I mentioned that I had taken a mathematical course on stochastic process, which had caught Jonas ’ attention. He immediately gave me a quiz, asking me to state the Weiner-Kinchin theorem. Fortunately, I was able to give the correct answer promptly. He was very satisfied and said, “Let me show you the lab.” That was how I joined the MKID group and also where my journey of noise study started. It
Despite the spectacular success of quantum mechanics (QM) over the last 80 years in explaining phenomena observed at the atomic and subatomic level, the conceptual status of the theory is still a topic of lively controversy. Most of the discussion centers around two famous paradoxes (or, as some would have it, pseudoparadoxes) associated, respectively, with the names of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) and with Schrodinger's cat. In this Viewpoint, I will concentrate on the paradox of Schrodinger's cat or, as it is often known (to my mind somewhat misleadingly), the quantum measurement paradox.