Barbara Kraus is an Austrian physicist specializing in

quantum information Quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information refers to both th ...

quantum entanglement Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of ...

, and

quantum key distribution Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication method which implements a cryptographic protocol involving components of quantum mechanics. It enables two parties to produce a shared random secret key known only to them, which can then be ...

. She is a University Professor and the head of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

Education and career

Kraus is originally from Innsbruck. She studied mathematics and physics at the University of Innsbruck, earning diplomas in mathematics and physics and a PhD in physics, completed in 2003. After postdoctoral research at the

Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics The Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics (abbreviation: MPQ; german: Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik) is a part of the Max Planck Society which operates 87 research facilities in Germany. The institute is located in Garching, Germany, w ...

, the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...

, and University of Innsbruck, she became an assistant professor in Innsbruck in 2010, and earned her

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

there in 2012. She became full professor in 2020.

Research

Kraus is best known for her work in quantum information and especially in entanglement theory. Together with her coworkers she developed criteria to decide whether a quantum state is separable or entangled and showed how to construct optimal

entanglement witness In quantum information theory, an entanglement witness is a functional which distinguishes a specific entangled state from separable ones. Entanglement witnesses can be linear or nonlinear functionals of the density matrix. If linear, then t ...

es and studied the creation of entanglement by unitary

quantum gate In quantum computing and specifically the quantum circuit model of computation, a quantum logic gate (or simply quantum gate) is a basic quantum circuit operating on a small number of qubits. They are the building blocks of quantum circuits, lik ...

s and

dissipative In thermodynamics, dissipation is the result of an irreversible process that takes place in homogeneous thermodynamic systems. In a dissipative process, energy (internal, bulk flow kinetic, or system potential) transforms from an initial form to a ...

processes. In 2010 she showed how to decide whether two pure quantum states of a many-particle system are equivalent to each other in terms of entanglement. More recently she introduced the notion of "maximally entangled sets" as a new concept generalizing maximally entangled ''states'' to the case of considering entanglement between more than two systems (

multipartite entanglement In the case of systems composed of m > 2 subsystems, the classification of quantum-entangled states is richer than in the bipartite case. Indeed, in multipartite entanglement apart from fully separable states and fully entangled states, there a ...

). In the field of

quantum cryptography Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution which offers an information-theoretically secure solution ...

, she studied the security of key-distribution protocols and the achievable secret-key rates. Among other results, she and her collaborators

Renato Renner Renato Renner (born 11 December 1974) is a Swiss professor for Theoretical Physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, where he is head of the Research Group for Quantum Information Theory. His research interests incl ...

and

Nicolas Gisin Nicolas Gisin (born 1952) is a Swiss physicist and professor at the University of Geneva working on the foundations of quantum mechanics, and quantum information and communication. His work includes both experimental and theoretical physics. He ...

gave an influential information-theoretic security proof for the security of a quantum key distribution protocol

Recognition

Kraus won a

Start-Preis The Start-Preis is the highest Austrian award for young scientists. It is awarded once per year by the Austrian Science Fund on behalf of the Austrian Ministry for Science. It is endowed with up to 1.2 million Euro for a proposed research projec ...

from the

Austrian Science Fund The Austrian Science Fund (german: Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, FWF) is the most important Austrian funding organization for basic research. The FWF supports research in science, engineering, and the humanities through a ...

in 2010. She was the 2011 winner of the

Ludwig Boltzmann Prize The Ludwig Boltzmann Prize is awarded by the Austrian Physical Society and honors outstanding achievements in theoretical physics. It is named after the famous Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. The prize was established at the annual meeting ...

of the

Austrian Physical Society The Austrian Physical Society (german: Österreichische Physikalische Gesellschaft) is the national physical society of Austria. History Until 1938, Austrian physicists were part of the German Physical Society. On 13 December 1950, it was decide ...

, and the 2013 winner of the

Lieben Prize The Ignaz Lieben Prize, named after the Austrian banker , is an annual Austrian award made by the Austrian Academy of Sciences to young scientists working in the fields of molecular biology, chemistry, or physics. Biography The Ignaz Lieben Priz ...

of the Austrian Academy of Sciences for her work on many-body entanglement. She became a member of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2014.

References

External links

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Entanglement Theory & Quantum Information Theory
at the University of Innsbruck {{DEFAULTSORT:Kraus, Barbara Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Austrian physicists Women physicists University of Innsbruck alumni Academic staff of the University of Innsbruck