British theoretical physicist
Adrian Kent is a British theoretical physicist, Professor of Quantum Physics at the
University of Cambridge , member of the
Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations , and Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics .
[1]
[2]
[3] His research areas are the
foundations of quantum theory ,
quantum information science and
quantum cryptography . He is known as the inventor of
relativistic quantum cryptography . In 1999 he published the first
unconditionally secure protocols for
bit commitment and
coin tossing , which were also the first relativistic cryptographic protocols.
[4]
[5] He is a co-inventor of quantum tagging, or quantum position authentication, providing the first schemes for position-based quantum cryptography.
[6]
[7] In 2005 he published with
Lucien Hardy and Jonathan Barrett the first security proof of
quantum key distribution based on the
no-signalling principle .
[8]
Work
Field theory
Kent's early contributions to physics were on topics related to
conformal field theory . Together with
Peter Goddard and
David Olive , he devised the
coset construction that classifies the unitary highest weight representations of the
Virasoro algebra , and he described the Virasoro algebra's singular vectors.
[9] In addition, he investigated the representation theory of
N
=
2
{\displaystyle N=2}
superconformal algebras .
[10]
Quantum cryptography
Kent is inventor of the field of
relativistic quantum cryptography , where security of the cryptographic tasks is guaranteed from the properties of
quantum information and from the relativistic physical principle stating that information cannot travel faster than the
speed of light (
no-signalling ). In 1999 he published the first
unconditionally secure protocols for
bit commitment and
strong coin tossing ,
[4]
[5] relativistic protocols that evade no-go theorem by Mayers, Lo and Chau, and by Lo and Chau, respectively.
[11]
[12]
[13] He is a co-inventor of quantum tagging, or quantum position authentication, where the properties of quantum information and the no-signalling principle are used to authenticate the location of an object.
[6]
[7]
He published with
Lucien Hardy and Jonathan Barrett the first security proof for
quantum key distribution based on the
no-signalling principle , where two parties can generate a secure secret
key even if their devices are not trusted and they are not described by
quantum theory , as long as they satisfy the
no-signalling principle . With Roger Colbeck, he invented quantum randomness expansion, a task where an initial private random string is expanded into a larger private random string.
[14]
Quantum foundations
Kent is a critic of the
many-worlds interpretation of
quantum mechanics ,
[15]
[16] as well as the
consistent histories interpretation .
[17] He has outlined a solution to the quantum reality problem, also called the
quantum measurement problem , that is consistent with
relativistic quantum theory , proposing that physical reality is described by a randomly chosen configuration of physical quantities (or beables) like the
stress–energy tensor , whose sample space is mathematically well defined and respects Lorentzian symmetry.
[18] He has proposed Causal Quantum Theory as an extension of quantum theory, according to which
local causality holds and the
reduction of the quantum state is a well-defined physical process, claiming that current
Bell-type experiments have not completely ruled out this theory.
[19] He discovered the no-summoning theorem, which extends the
no-cloning theorem of
quantum information to
Minkowski spacetime .
[20]
Other work
Kent is a member of the advisory panel for the Cambridge
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk .
[21] He has discussed the mathematics of risk assessments for global catastrophes.
[22] He has proposed a solution to
Fermi’s paradox , hypothesizing that various intelligent extra-terrestrial civilizations have existed, interacted and competed for resources, and have evolved to avoid advertising their existence.
[23]
[24]
References
^
Adrian Kent, University of Cambridge
^
Adrian Kent, Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations
^
Adrian Kent, Perimeter Institute
^
a
b
Kent, Adrian (1999). "Unconditionally Secure Bit Commitment".
Physical Review Letters . 83 (7): 1447–1450.
arXiv :
quant-ph/9810068 .
Bibcode :
1999PhRvL..83.1447K .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.1447 .
S2CID
8823466 .
^
a
b
Kent, Adrian (1999). "Coin Tossing is Strictly Weaker than Bit Commitment".
Physical Review Letters . 83 (25): 5382–5384.
arXiv :
quant-ph/9810067 .
Bibcode :
1999PhRvL..83.5382K .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.5382 .
S2CID
16764407 .
^
a
b
US 7075438 , Kent, A.; Beausoleil, R. & Munro, W. et al., "Tagging Systems", issued 2006-07-11
^
a
b
Kent, A.; Munro, William J.; Spiller, Timothy P. (2011). "Quantum Tagging: Authenticating location via quantum information and relativistic signalling constraints".
Physical Review A . 84 (1): 012326.
arXiv :
1008.2147 .
Bibcode :
2011PhRvA..84a2326K .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevA.84.012326 .
S2CID
1042757 .
^
Barrett, Jonathan;
Hardy, Lucien ; Kent, Adrian (2005). "No Signaling and Quantum Key Distribution".
Physical Review Letters . 95 (1): 010503.
arXiv :
quant-ph/0405101 .
Bibcode :
2005PhRvL..95a0503B .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.010503 .
PMID
16090597 .
S2CID
10172188 .
^
Goddard, Peter ; Kent, Adrian;
Olive, David (1986).
"Unitary representations of the Virasoro and super-Virasoro algebras" .
Communications in Mathematical Physics . 103 (1): 105–119.
Bibcode :
1986CMaPh.103..105G .
doi :
10.1007/BF01464283 .
S2CID
91181508 .
^ Boucher, Wayne;
Friedan, Daniel ; Kent, Adrian (1986). "Determinant formulae and unitarity for the N = 2 superconformal algebras in two dimensions or exact results on string compactification".
Physics Letters B . 172 (1–2): 316–322.
Bibcode :
1986PhLB..172..316B .
doi :
10.1016/0370-2693(86)90260-1 .
^
Mayers, Dominic (1997). "Unconditionally Secure Quantum Bit Commitment is Impossible".
Physical Review Letters . 78 (17): 3414–3417.
arXiv :
quant-ph/9605044 .
Bibcode :
1997PhRvL..78.3414M .
CiteSeerX
10.1.1.251.5550 .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.3414 .
S2CID
14522232 .
^
Lo, Hoi-Kwong; Chau, H. F. (1997). "Is Quantum Bit Commitment Really Possible?".
Physical Review Letters . 78 (17): 3410–3413.
arXiv :
quant-ph/9603004 .
Bibcode :
1997PhRvL..78.3410L .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.3410 .
S2CID
3264257 .
^
Lo, Hoi-Kwong; Chau, H. F. (1998). "Why quantum bit commitment and ideal quantum coin tossing are impossible".
Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena . 120 (1–2): 177–187.
arXiv :
quant-ph/9711065 .
Bibcode :
1998PhyD..120..177L .
doi :
10.1016/S0167-2789(98)00053-0 .
S2CID
14378275 .
^
Colbeck, Roger; Kent, Adrian (2011). "Private randomness expansion with untrusted devices".
Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical . 44 (9): 095305.
arXiv :
1011.4474 .
Bibcode :
2011JPhA...44i5305C .
doi :
10.1088/1751-8113/44/9/095305 .
S2CID
118630851 .
^ Kent, Adrian (2010). "One world versus many: the inadequacy of Everettian accounts of evolution, probability, and scientific confirmation". In Saunders, S.; Barrett, J.; Kent, A.; Wallace, D. (eds.). Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory and Reality . Oxford University Press.
arXiv :
0905.0624 .
^
Bacciagaluppi, G. (2013). "The many facets of Everett's many worlds".
Metascience . 22 (3): 575–582.
doi :
10.1007/s11016-013-9747-9 .
S2CID
169282065 .
^ Kent, Adrian (1997). "Consistent Sets Yield Contrary Inferences in Quantum Theory".
Physical Review Letters . 78 (15): 2874–2877.
arXiv :
gr-qc/9604012 .
Bibcode :
1997PhRvL..78.2874K .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.2874 .
S2CID
16862775 .
^
Kent, Adrian (2014). "Solution to the Lorentzian quantum reality problem".
Physical Review A . 90 (1): 012107.
arXiv :
1311.0249 .
Bibcode :
2014PhRvA..90a2107K .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevA.90.012107 .
S2CID
118540685 .
^
Kent, Adrian (2005). "Causal quantum theory and the collapse locality loophole".
Physical Review A . 72 (1): 012107.
arXiv :
quant-ph/0204104 .
Bibcode :
2005PhRvA..72a2107K .
doi :
10.1103/PhysRevA.72.012107 .
S2CID
37937717 .
^
Kent, Adrian (2013). "A no-summoning theorem in relativistic quantum theory".
Quantum Information Processing . 12 (2): 1023–1032.
arXiv :
1101.4612 .
Bibcode :
2013QuIP...12.1023K .
doi :
10.1007/s11128-012-0431-6 .
S2CID
9797730 .
^
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
^
Kent, Adrian (2004). "A critical look at risk assessments for global catastrophes".
Risk Analysis . 24 (1): 157–168.
arXiv :
hep-ph/0009204 .
doi :
10.1111/j.0272-4332.2004.00419.x .
PMID
15028008 .
S2CID
24836816 .
^
Kent, Adrian (2011). "Too Damned Quiet?".
arXiv :
1104.0624 .
^
MIT Technology Review, Interstellar Predation Could Explain Fermi Paradox, 2011
External links