Preface Fortschr. Phys. 11–12 /2009

Abstract

This volume collects contributions from some of the talks presented at the International Conference on "Scalable Quantum Computing with Light and Atoms", held in Cortina d' Ampezzo (Italy) on February [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] 2009. This conference has provided an up-to-date view of the spectacular advances towards the realisation of quantum information processing, based on the individual control of atoms, ions, and photons. Its central day, on February 18th, has been entirely devoted to celebrate the 70th birthday of Prof. Paolo Tombesi, a distinguished player in this interdisciplinary and challenging research arena. This volume is, therefore, an attempt to celebrate his scientific career and his outstanding contribution to the development of Quantum Optics, also in connection with the emerging field of Quantum Information. Indeed, the research topics covered by various papers of the present issue provide a good picture of the multifaceted research interests of Paolo Tombesi. In fact, at the beginning of his career in the seventies, he worked on Statistical Mechanics, especially 2nd order phase transitions and non-equilibrium dynamics.In the eighties, stimulated by a strong scientific collaboration and close friendship with Dan Walls, he switched to Quantum Optics, giving important contributions on squeezing and in the description of systems subject to quantum-limited feedback loops. Then in the nineties, he was one of the first scientists who extended and exported techniques and methods of Quantum Optics not only to the control of atomic systems, but also of macroscopic objects, with his pioneering work on optomechanical systems. Moreover, Paolo significantly contributed to the fields of decoherence control, quantum tomography, quantum computation with trapped particles, quantum teleportation, and quantum cryptography. Almost all this research fields are touched by the following papers, showing the impressive growth and ramifications of Quantum Optics during the last 20 years. The conference venue, Cortina d'Ampezzo, is also closely related to Paolo Tombesi and the celebration of his 70th birthday just in this wonderful Dolomite scenario aims at establishing an ideal link with two NATO Workshops, which Paolo organized in Cortina in 1988 and in 1991 and which represented two important events in the history of the Quantum Optics community.We take the opportunity to thank the FP6 European Integrated Project SCALA, and his coordinator, Philippe Grangier, for the financial and logistic support. Last but not least, a special thanks goes to Marcella Mastrofini. She has been the hyper-efficient secretary of the three Cortina Conferences, and without her no conference and no celebration would have been possible.