IMPROVING UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION TO PREPARE THE QUANTUM-ENABLED WORKFORCE IN QUANTUM SENSING
Abstract
The overarching goal of this proposed work is to develop effective, evidence-based, and flexible materials that enable learning the foundations of quantum sensing and to help prepare course alumni for future work in the second quantum revolution era. Our team has already developed and taught three courses that can achieve these goals. They have been taught in both an in-class and an on-line environment. The first class is called Quantum Mechanics for Everyone. This class is designed for students who have completed their junior year of high school. Its prerequisites include high school algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. It also assumes a high-school-level familiarity with physics. The course has already been taken by more than 45,000 students and it can help create a quantum aware workforce. The second two courses are Mathematical and Computational Methods and Quantum Mechanics. The first of these courses assumes a preparation in the three-semester Calculus sequence, while familiarity with the first three semesters of undergraduate physics is helpful, but not required. Using a pedagogy that emphasizes the physical phenomena being described by the mathematics, it develops six major topics: Calculus review; Vector calculus theorems; Complex analysis; Linear algebra; Ordinary differential equations; and Fourier series. The course focus is on preparing students with the mathematical background needed to study more advanced physics courses, especially quantum sensing. The second one is a quantum mechanics course that covers material in a new way. Starting with conceptual ideas that foster thinking in terms of quantummechanical ideas, it then covers the phenomena of spin, the simple harmonic oscillator, angular momentum, central forces, perturbation theory, time evolution, and ends with quantizing light. The approach emphasizes working with operators and is based on four fundamental identities—the Leibniz rule for commutators; the Hadamard Lemma, the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula, and the exponential disentangling identity. Using these, all materials covered in a standard one-semester undergraduate course are covered here, but with an emphasis on a representation-independent framework. The capstone of this series of courses is an explanation of how the Laser-Interferometry Gravitational- Wave Observatory works. This is the most sensitive quantum sensor built by humankind and an instrument that every student of quantum sensing should understand.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 20, 2023
- Source ID
- FA95502210469
Entities
People
- James K. Freericks
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Georgetown University
- United States Air Force