Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Hey guys,
I'm from Canada so I am not really familiar with any of the universities in the States. I'm interested in quantum optics/quantum information science. I think I am a competitive enough student to apply to top 10 schools. Are there any schools that really stand out in these areas of research? Thanks for any replies,
-dm

Obviously most of the big name schools are going to be strong in these areas, but not being familiar with U.S. schools, the two that you should know are University of Colorado and University of Maryland.
These schools don't exactly have the prestige associated with some of the other well known physics schools (i.e. MIT, Harvard, etc.), but if you plan to stay in quantum optics/AMO these schools are very well known. Colorado is widely agreed to be the best in AMO, and Maryland is definitely headed to a close runner up in the near future. Colorado has JILA and Maryland has JQI, which are joint institutes between the schools and NIST Boulder and NIST Maryland, respectively. JQI is new, but Maryland has been buying up top ranking AMO faculty from other schools quite rapidly. If you are interested in quantum optics, you should definitely apply to Colorado.

Theory or experiment?

Hah that's a good question. Truth is I don't know yet. I'm leaning towards experiment, but I've never had any exposure to it so who knows?
-dm

The only really good quantum optics people i know of are in germany. i mean there is the whole ligo thing with the 40kg mirror that is a quantum object.

LucasWillis wrote:Obviously most of the big name schools are going to be strong in these areas, but not being familiar with U.S. schools, the two that you should know are University of Colorado and University of Maryland.
These schools don't exactly have the prestige associated with some of the other well known physics schools (i.e. MIT, Harvard, etc.), but if you plan to stay in quantum optics/AMO these schools are very well known. Colorado is widely agreed to be the best in AMO, and Maryland is definitely headed to a close runner up in the near future. Colorado has JILA and Maryland has JQI, which are joint institutes between the schools and NIST Boulder and NIST Maryland, respectively. JQI is new, but Maryland has been buying up top ranking AMO faculty from other schools quite rapidly.

I see that Maryland and Colorado are some of the top AMO schools. But how are they in theory/computation? I see that most of their work is experimental, which I'm not interested in