A global citizen ITE module and science ite: supporting confidence and competence of beginning teachers

In the Science Religion Encounters (SRE) research project, focus groups with primary student teachers and the survey findings from primary ECTs revealed many aspired to teach science/religion encounters or other sensitive issues, but felt various barriers stood in the way of planning such lessons. Barriers included fears over negative responses from parents, or poor reactions from mentors/senior leaders and also a concern over how to respond to issues of diversity in religious beliefs. Student teachers can be prepared for such challenges, though, if they are given time to discuss them in university sessions, with roleplaying and rehearsing opportunities to practice appropriate responses to challenging situations and learning how to establish a classroom ethos of respect. Time is needed to understand why overcoming barriers is necessary. One university primary ITE team has chosen to tackle this issue through making Global Citizenship one of the core themes of their teacher education vision, threaded from a core module to influence the teaching in subject sessions

Signatures of Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference at Microwave Frequencies

Two-photon quantum interference at a beam splitter, commonly known as Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, was recently demonstrated with \emph{microwave-frequency} photons by Lang \emph{et al.}\,\cite{lang:microwaveHOM}. This experiment employed circuit QED systems as sources of microwave photons, and was based on the measurement of second-order cross-correlation and auto-correlation functions of the microwave fields at the outputs of the beam splitter. Here we present the calculation of these correlation functions for the cases of inputs corresponding to: (i) trains of \emph{pulsed} Gaussian or Lorentzian single microwave photons, and (ii) resonant fluorescent microwave fields from \emph{continuously-driven} circuit QED systems. The calculations include the effects of the finite bandwidth of the detection scheme. In both cases, the signature of two-photon quantum interference is a suppression of the second-order cross-correlation function for small delays. The experiment described in Ref. \onlinecite{lang:microwaveHOM} was performed with trains of \emph{Lorentzian} single photons, and very good agreement between the calculations and the experimental data was obtained.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Nonlinear metrology with a quantum interface

We describe nonlinear quantum atom-light interfaces and nonlinear quantum metrology in the collective continuous variable formalism. We develop a nonlinear effective Hamiltonian in terms of spin and polarization collective variables and show that model Hamiltonians of interest for nonlinear quantum metrology can be produced in $^{87}$Rb ensembles. With these Hamiltonians, metrologically relevant atomic properties, e.g. the collective spin, can be measured better than the "Heisenberg limit" $\propto 1/N$. In contrast to other proposed nonlinear metrology systems, the atom-light interface allows both linear and non-linear estimation of the same atomic quantities.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure

Science religion encounters toolkit 13: Research summaries from the project

An online survey was designed to explore beginning teachers’ confidence and competence in planning for and responding to science/religion encounters in the classroom. The online survey was designed in response to comments in focus groups with 75 student teachers. There were 949 responses to the online survey. 324 primary teachers and student teachers completed over 50% of the survey and it is responses from this group that are analysed below

Continuous quantum non-demolition measurement of Fock states of a nanoresonator using feedback-controlled circuit QED

We propose a scheme for the quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of Fock states of a nanomechanical resonator via feedback control of a coupled circuit QED system. A Cooper pair box (CPB) is coupled to both the nanoresonator and microwave cavity. The CPB is read-out via homodyne detection on the cavity and feedback control is used to effect a non-dissipative measurement of the CPB. This realizes an indirect QND measurement of the nanoresonator via a second-order coupling of the CPB to the nanoresonator number operator. The phonon number of the Fock state may be determined by integrating the stochastic master equation derived, or by processing of the measurement signal.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure