Researchers of IQOQI-Vienna win the PNAS Cozzarelli Prize with Melvin – the algorithm that creates new quantum experiments

In 2016, Mario Krenn, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues at the IQOQI-Vienna of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and at the University of Vienna have developed the algorithm Melvin, which can automatically design new quantum experiments for which the human scientists had no answer until then [1]. Since then, several of these experiments have been successfully implemented in the laboratories of Zeilinger group [2-4]. Also, the unintuitive solutions of the algorithm have led to new ideas and connections in quantum physics [5,6]. In the more recent study "Active learning machine learns to create new quantum experiments" [7] the Viennese physicists have joined forces with the group of Hans Briegel from the University of Innsbruck, engaged in research at the boundary between quantum physics and artificial intelligence, to expand Melvin's ability with Artificial Intelligence. This research has now been chosen to represent scientific excellence and originality in the class of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the Cozzarelli prize.