Personal profile
Profile Summary
At its heart, at least when seen through the lens of quantum information theory, quantum mechanics can be understood as a theory of how information is processed in nature.
Such information processing can take widely different forms and be both desired and detrimental. Maximizing the exchange of information between distant parties is the goal of quantum communication applications - like a future quantum internet - while an exchange of information between a system of interest – say, a qubit in a quantum computer - with its surrounding environment presents itself as unwanted noise.
As a consequence, understanding the spatio-temporal correlations that underly information processing in quantum systems is not only of foundational interest, but has direct practical implications for quantum devices. My research aims to map out the theoretical limits of complex quantum information processing, with the goal to devise practical means to learn quantum noise and develop efficient approaches to control and and harness general quantum processes.
Biography
Born and raised in Middle Franconia, Southern Germany, I studied physics at TU Dresden, Germany and the University of Aix-Marseille II, France. I obtained my Masters degree at TU Dresden under the supervision of Walter Strunz, working on the geometry of correlations in bipartite quantum systems.
For my PhD, I moved to Melbourne, working in the group of Kavan Modi at Monash University, focussing on the investigation of memory effects in complex open quantum system dynamics.
Supported by an Erwin Schrödinger fellowship, I moved back to Europe in 2019 and held postdoctoral positions at IQOQI Vienna and the University of Vienna in the groups of Marcus Huber and the Young Independent Research group (YIRG). There, my research interests predominantly revolved around genuinely quantum space-time correlations, quantum causality, and higher order quantum maps.
Subsequently, I left mainland Europe for Ireland, where a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship allowed me to pursue research on the structure and characterization of quantum stochastic processes in Felix Binder’s group at Trinity College Dublin.
Since 2025, I am an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences (IPAQS), Edinburgh, where my research focus lies on exploring the practical space-time limits of quantum applications.
Research interests
My research interests lie at the intersection of Quantum Information Theory, the field of Open Quantum System Dynamics, and the study of causality in quantum mechanics. I am particularly interested in the role that complex memory effects play in the dynamics of quantum system, and study how to control and exploit them for practical tasks. In addition, my research focuses on the investigation of causal and causally disordered signalling structures in higher order quantum processes, as well as the demarcation line between classical and quantum phenomena.
In my research practice, I predominantly employ the toolbox of theoretical quantum information theory. The main tool I use to model complex quantum processes are higher order quantum operations. To analyse and characterize them, I borrow insights from matrix product operator theory, entanglement theory, quantum tomography and quantum control, while their optimization is predominantly based on semidefinite programming and gradient descent techniques. My work focusses on analytical results and techniques, but borrows heavily from numerical approaches whenever necessary.
Key Research Words/Phrases
Quantum Information , Open Quantum System Dynamics, Quantum Correlations in Space and Time, Quantum Causality
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Research output
- 21 Article
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Thermodynamic criteria for signaling in quantum channels
Luo, Y., Milz, S. & Binder, F. C., 24 Dec 2025, In: Physical Review Research. 7, 4, 043327.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile1 Downloads (Pure) -
Characterising the Hierarchy of Multi-time Quantum Processes with Classical Memory
Taranto, P., Quintino, M. T., Murao, M. & Milz, S., 2 May 2024, In: Quantum. 8, 1328.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile12 Link opens in a new tab Citations (Scopus)51 Downloads (Pure) -
Characterising transformations between quantum objects, `completeness' of quantum properties, and transformations without a fixed causal order
Milz, S. & Quintino, M. T., 17 Jul 2024, In: Quantum. 8, 1415.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile2 Link opens in a new tab Citations (Scopus)59 Downloads (Pure) -
Witnessing environment dimension through temporal correlations
Vieira, L. B., Milz, S., Vitagliano, G. & Budroni, C., 10 Jan 2024, In: Quantum. 8, 1224.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile3 Link opens in a new tab Citations (Scopus)16 Downloads (Pure) -
Extracting quantum dynamical resources: consumption of non-Markovianity for noise reduction
Berk, G. D., Milz, S., Pollock, F. A. & Modi, K., 19 Oct 2023, In: npj Quantum Information. 9, 104.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile19 Link opens in a new tab Citations (Scopus)28 Downloads (Pure)