Prize Recipient

Bryce Gadway
Colgate University

"Creation and Measurement of a Single-Proton Two-Qubit State to Test a Bell-Kochen-Specker Inequality."

Bryce Gadways senior-year research, conducted under Professor Kiko Galvez, examined the creation of single-particle entangled states and their application for testing Hidden-Variable Theorems. Specifically, he created an ensemble of single photons entangled in their polarization and direction of momentum. These photons were used to test theories of nature based on Non-Contextual Realism (i.e. Non-Contextual Hidden-Variable Theorems), which jointly assumes that a system's observables have real values that are independent of the context of measurement. Experimental results contradicted the statistical predictions of this class of Hidden-Variable Theorems, thus ruling out Realism or Non-Contextuality - or possibly both. The tenability of Quantum Mechanics and Contextual-Hidden Variable Theorems remains.

Gadway received his B.A. in astronomy-physics from Colgate University in 2007, as well as a minor in East Asian studies. At Colgate he received the physics & astronomy department's Alumni Award and the Japanese department's Mori Award. He also received a UNSW Travel Scholarship which enabled him to spend a term abroad in Sydney. Bryce was inducted into Phi Eta Sigma, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Pi Sigma. He is also an APS member.

Gadway is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in physics at Stony Brook University, with the support of a GAANN Fellowship.

Marvin Cohen (Chair), J. Hopfield, M. Sher, A. Chodos, D. Newman, K. McLeod, M. Zeller, D. Goldhaber-Gordon, J. Eckert