Quantum Measurement Theory and its Applications

Recent experimental advances in the control of quantum superconducting circuits, nano-mechanical resonators and photonic crystals has meant that quantum measurement theory is now an indispensable part of the modelling and design of experimental technologies. This book, aimed at graduate students and researchers in physics, gives a thorough introduction to the basic theory of quantum measurement and many of its important modern applications. Measurement and control is explicitly treated in superconducting circuits and optical and opto-mechanical systems, and methods for deriving the Hamiltonians of superconducting circuits are introduced in detail. Further applications covered include feedback control, metrology, open systems and thermal environments, Maxwell's demon, and the quantum-to-classical transition.

Preface; 1. Quantum measurement theory; 2. Useful concepts from information theory; 3. Continuous measurement; 4. Statistical mechanics, open systems, and measurement; 5. Quantum feedback control; 6. Metrology; 7. Quantum mesoscopic systems I: circuits and measurements; 8. Quantum mesoscopic systems II: measurement and control; Appendices; References; Index.

Kurt Jacobs is an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is a leading researcher in quantum measurement theory and feedback control, and applications in nano-electro-mechanical systems. He is author of the textbook Stochastic Processes for Physicists: Understanding Noisy Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2010).