Prof. Carlo Beenakker will visit Utrecht to give a lecture about his research on majorana-fermions. This researched can be used in the development of quantum computers.

Since the discovery of electron-positron annihilation we know that some particles have an antiparticle and if the two meet they destroy each other. Ettore Majorana suggested in the 1930's that a particle might be its own antiparticle, so pairs would have to remain widely separated to survive. An example of such a Majorana particle was constructed recently in Delft, using a superconducting "sea" of electrons to hide the charge difference between particle and antiparticle. (One speaks of a "quasiparticle" because it is not a fundamental particle.) The application may be found in the area of quantum computers, using pairs of Majorana particles to store quantum information in a way which is protected from decoherence.