Gravity, Optics and Quanta

From the beginning of time, humanity has always been fascinated by Universe and its secrets. Among the most intriguing astrophysical objects there is the black hole, a cosmic body with a such strong gravity that nothing, even light, can escape from it. However, studying these objects which are thousands of light years away is very challenging. For this reason, scientists have discovered how to reproduce them in the laboratory. Our team of research develops such experiments by means of extreme light interactions. Come along to discover how it is possible to have the Universe @ your lab!

Hands up if you think reality is objective. Well, I am sorry, but you might have to change your mind. In this talk, I’ll show how the quantum world can not be described by an observer-independent framework. In particular, I’ll describe you the results of our recent quantum experiment where we demonstrate how different observers can not agree upon a common description of reality, their description must be subjective. But no worries, our everyday life apparently is not quantum, the world is safe.

Chirality refers to a lack of mirror symmetry in objects, in particular molecules. That means if I mirror a chiral molecule I cannot rotate it to match the original object. Biomolecules and medical drugs are chiral, and their pharmaceutical function differs between the mirror images. Ibuprofen, for example, is a chiral molecule only one mirror image is effective as anti-inflammatory, while the other is largely ineffective. Testing for chirality of molecules is therefore an important task, and my talk will explain how the rotation of a molecule can be rendered to discriminate between them.