Valentina Parigi, recipient of the ERC Consolidator Grant

Valentina Parigi –Quantum Optics group- has been awarded a 2018 ERC Consolidator Grant (one of the most prestigious grant delivered by the European Council) for her project COQCOoN: Continuous Variables Quantum Complex Networks. This project will tackle both the quantum and the complex structure of physical systems.

Indeed, at different scales, from molecular systems to technological infrastructures, physical systems group in structures which are neither simply regular nor random, but can be represented by networks with complex shape. Proteins in metabolic structures and the World Wide Web, for example, share the same kind of statistical distribution of connections of their constituents. In addition, the individual elements of natural samples, like atoms or electrons, are quantum objects. Hence replicating complex networks in a scalable quantum platform is a formidable opportunity to learn more about the intrinsic quantumness of real world and for the efficient exploitation of quantum-complex structures in future technologies.
Covering both theoretical and experimental questions, COQCOoN will implement optical quantum complex networks via multimode parametric process and distributed photonic excitations.