Quantum Foundations Centre

We are a newly-formed, interdisciplinary research centre that spans both the Department of Physics and the Department of Mathematics, with strong links with biology through the Leverhulme Quantum Biology Doctoral Training Centre. While wide ranging in our interests, what our members have in common is that they all work on theoretical problems at the forefront of research across fundamental physics, mainly exploring the behaviour of open quantum systems in various environments.

Research areas

Our interests span the role of the quantum/classical interface, quantum entanglement, decoherence, the measurement problem in physics, and even the nature of space and time.

Classical wavefunctions and hybrid classical-quantum systems
Geometric quantum mechanics
Nuclear physics with open quantum systems
Open quantum systems in biology
Quantum thermodynamics
Twistor cosmology and quantum space-time

Our staff members

Professor Jim Al-Khalili

Centre Director

Jim Al-Khalili OBE FRS is a theoretical physicist at the University of Surrey where he holds a Distinguished Chair in physics as well as a university chair in the public engagement in science. He received his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics from Surrey in 1989 and then spent two years as an SERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College London before returning to Sur...
See all team members

Events

Attend one of our upcoming seminars or watch some of the past ones we've held with some brilliant physicists speaking.

Find out more