NSF awards Igor Pikovski with a generous grant to test quantum gravity in the laboratory

Branco Weiss Alumnus Igor Pikovski was recently awarded a Career Award from the U. S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Titled “Towards Low-Energy Tests of Quantum Gravity with AMO Systems,” the five-year research project will get a total of 514,230 USD. The Career Award is NSF’s most prestigious grant in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Dr. Pikovski is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, USA. The project he proposed leverages advances in quantum technology and quantum information science and applies them to the specific problem of how to search for signatures (characteristics) of gravity at a quantum scale.

Dr. Pikovski will design and develop new gravity detection methods that will enable primarily tabletop laboratory experiments to indirectly detect signs of quantum gravity, helping to guide the way toward determining the fundamental nature of gravity, and, ultimately, to resolving quantum theory with general relativity. Discovering experimental methods for detecting quantum gravity signatures could be a gamechanger for the natural sciences and for humanity’s understanding of nature itself.

Read more about Igor Pikovski’s work on Stevens website

See the award on the NSF website