The Quantum Strong Force

Please join us at the next Saturday Morning of Theoretical Physics to hear lectures on The Quantum Strong Force this upcoming Michaelmas Term: 25th October, 2025. Please check back on this page to learn more information as it is released, and register at the link below.

Please register for this event HERE.

Speakers

Quantum entanglement at the highest energies

Prof Alan Barr

Quantum systems are weird. Parts of quantum systems can be entangled - coupled so tightly together that it’s not meaningful to describe the whole in terms of its constituents. These weird properties are at the heart of modern quantum technology. Since quantum mechanics forms the basis of quantum field theories we should also expect the subatomic particles of the Standard Model to have these features. In this talk I will describe how we can treat the Large Hadron Collider as a machine to process quantum information. By doing so we can detect entanglement and related quantum phenomena at the highest experimentally accessible energies. These tests, which probe tiny distances - much smaller than the size of the proton - allow us to push at the bounds of validity of the quantum theory.

The Strong Force Across Scales: Quantum Simplified

Prof Gavin Salam

High-energy particle collisions set the stage for the quantum strong force to play out across enormous ranges of space and time. Understanding and predicting the resulting complexity is essential for exploring many fundamental questions at the Large Hadron Collider. Strikingly, when the strong interactions stretch across many scales, aspects that seem deeply quantum begin to simplify and take on a classical character. This talk will explore where the strong force behaves in unmistakably quantum ways, where it can be treated as classical, and what challenges remain in bridging the two.

Prof Fabrizio Caola

TBA