When Tommaso Macrì arrived in Spain at age 23, his life changed. Born in 1984, in Padua, in northern Italy, the researcher had never considered living outside his hometown, where he graduated in physics and enrolled in a master’s degree. The opportunity to study at the Autonomous University of Madrid came in the final semester of the Masters. After six months of getting to know students from different cultures, he felt “another person”: “Without this exchange, I wouldn’t have found the courage to take riskier decisions”, he says. Today, risk is part of the physicist’s daily life, whose area of research almost nobody in the world investigates: quantum simulation.
Since then there have been many bold choices. With four countries in his bag and a line of research at the frontier of knowledge in quantum physics – a fundamental theory that succeeds in the study of systems whose dimensions are close to or below the atomic scale – Macrì, in Brazil since 2015 as a professor at UFRN, can contribute for the development of the next generation of quantum processors.
Your journey started early. Even in childhood, the aptitude for numbers already signaled a future as a scientist. At fifteen, the young man opted for physics. “In Italy, I had the privilege of having a quality public education that gave me a very complete education”, he said. “It is necessary to provide children with the basic tools so that they can learn about different careers.”
It was not immediately that he entered the quantum universe. Until he went to Madrid to complete his master’s degree, Macrì was studying high energy physics, an area that investigates the fundamental forces of nature. “But last semester I realized that I wanted to try other paths”, he recalls. “So I bet on statistical physics for the doctorate, and later on quantum technology.”
After completing his exchange in Madrid, he returned to Italy, but this time he settled in Trieste, where he did his doctorate at the International School of Advanced Studies. It took four years “in one of the environments with the greatest flow of people and ideas” he has ever been.
The next destination was Germany. In 2011, he received a postdoc proposal at the Max Planck Institute for Complex Systems in Dresden. There, his passion for quantum technology was consolidated, an area in which the researcher works until today. “It was an excellent experience, scientists are everywhere, in bars and on the streets.”
Still exploring different lines in quantum mechanics, he joined a second postdoc, divided between Florence and Munich. Macrì enjoyed the “privilege”, he says, of working at the Quantum Science and Technology institute in Arcetri, where he taught none other than Galileo Galilei.
The visit to Brazil became official after three visits to congresses and scientific partnerships with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. In one of these, he met his current wife, a Brazilian event producer with whom he fell in love. The contest for the university’s physics department was just the consolidation of plans.
At the Potiguar university, his group is investigating something that may sound incomprehensible to almost everyone – quantum simulation for applications in quantum technology, especially systems with long-range interaction, in which particles interact even far from each other. “This is a field of research that covers several areas of physics: atomic, molecular, optics, condensed matter, nuclear, gravitational and high energy”, he explains. Macrì is one of the few representatives from Brazil who produce knowledge in this area.
Their simulations already show great potential for applications. Advances in the field can be useful in quantum communication networks, gyroscopes, atomic clocks, sensors and the long-awaited quantum computers. “Most of my time is in fundamental physics, but I’m always looking at possible applications”, he says.
Quantum technology has advanced in recent years across the world. The field, described in 1997 by the Australian Gerard J. Milburn, can be divided into four main areas: information, which investigates quantum cryptography; computing, which seeks to create quantum computers; sensors, which promise to make accurate measurements of frequencies, magnetic fields and even time; and, finally, the field of quantum simulation, Macrì’s favorite, a line dedicated to understanding matter in a more elementary way. “As the great Richard Feynman said, ‘Nature isn’t classic, and if you want to do a simulation, you better do quantum mechanics. It’s a wonderful problem because it doesn’t seem so easy.’
*
Pedro Lira is a journalist and social media at Instituto Serrapilheira.
Subscribe to Serrapilheira’s newsletter to follow more news from the institute and from the Ciência Fundamental blog.
.
