Quantum Theory Group in Palermo

We are a large team, based in the Department of Physics and Chemistry at University of Palermo, exploring the theory of quantum systems and processes.

We address frontier questions in the engineering, control, characterisation and exploitations of quantum states and resources. The expertise of the members of our group spans a large range of topics, from Quantum Optics to Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics, from Quantum Information Processing to Open System Dynamics and Artificial Intelligence. We also enjoy exploring the intricacies of the foundations of quantum mechanics from an information theoretic standpoint. Image

A key aim of our research is the development of theoretical frameworks of prompt experimental translation to understand the interplay between quantum resources, non-equilibrium physics, and control.

While pursuing these goals, we interact with some of the leading experimental teams addressing photonics, optomechanics, cold atom, and semiconductor-based platforms. Get in touch with us if you are interested in our research and to explore potentials for collaborations!

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White paper: 1-10 Hz matter-wave interferometer to test the spin entanglement witness for quantum gravity

In this white paper, we highlight the importance of the 1–10 mHz frequency range for laboratory tests of the quantum nature of gravity using the quantum gravity-induced entanglement of masses (QGEM) protocol. QGEM requires matter-wave interferometers with masses m ∼ 10⁻¹⁵–10⁻¹⁴ kg, brought within separations d ∼ 30–50 μm, while maintaining spatial superpositions of 1–20 μm and coherence for τ ∼ 0.1–1 s. These requirements make low-frequency environmental noise a central experimental challenge and place QGEM in a regime closely related to the low-frequency goals of the Einstein Telescope (ET) and the Cosmic Explorer (CE). In particular, QGEM is sensitive to relative acceleration noise (RAN) and to gravity-gradient noise (GGN) generated by seismic and other environmental mass-density fluctuations. For representative parameters m = 10⁻¹⁴ kg, Δx = 10 μm, and τ = 1 s, the differential acceleration-noise amplitude spectral density must be suppressed well below the 10⁻¹⁵ m s⁻²/√Hz level to keep acceleration-induced dephasing below the relevant experimental scale. Achieving this level of low-frequency noise suppression is therefore a key requirement for QGEM and closely parallels the seismic and gravity-gradient noise challenges that ET and CE address.

Who can sample forever? Shot noise effects in quantum linear regression

Quantum fidelity kernels and quantum extreme learning machines share the same basic architecture: a fixed quantum device generates features that are combined through a classically trained linear model. We refer to this broad non-variational setting as quantum linear regression. A defining aspect of these models is that the quantum features are not directly available, but must be estimated from a finite number of shots. We show that finite statistics makes quantum linear regression unavoidably ill-conditioned. Ideal feature vectors are confined to a subspace determined by the dimension of the Hilbert space, whereas finite-shot estimates generically acquire components outside this subspace. Training then attempts to fit directions that disappear in the infinite-statistics limit, making the learned model increasingly sensitive to sampling noise. We analyze this mechanism for quantum extreme learning machines trained on $n_{tr}$ states with $N$ shots per state. Despite the ill-conditioning, predictions remain controlled when the training targets are exact. Finite sampling produces a systematic prediction error that decreases quadratically with $N$, while fluctuations induced by the random training measurements decrease inversely with the total training budget. Thus, unlike in standard linear regression with exactly known features, increasing the dataset size alone cannot remove the error caused by sampling noise. If the training targets are also noisy, due for instance to state-preparation errors, the otherwise hidden directions become active. The test error can then increase with $N$, a behavior that we ascribe to a form of quantum overfitting. Our results expose a fundamental tradeoff between dataset size and per-state statistics in non-variational quantum learning and provide a baseline for resource-aware training and regularization strategies.