David Vitali

David Vitali is an Italian physicist and professor of theoretical physics at the University of Camerino. He is known for his contributions to the fields of quantum optics, quantum information science, and cavity optomechanics. In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Academic career

In 1992, Vitali was a visiting lecturer at the University of North Texas. In 1993, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Pisa unit of the National Institute for the Physics of Matter (INFM).

He joined the University of Camerino in 1993 as a researcher in physics. He was appointed associate professor of Physics of Matter in 2001 and became full professor of Theoretical Physics in 2015 at the School of Science and Technology.

Vitali was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2015. In 2021, he was named a Senior Member of Optica.

Research

Vitali's research is in the fields of quantum optics and quantum information science. Since the mid-1990s, his work has addressed theoretical aspects of quantum computation, including the implementation and assessment of quantum gate operations and quantum error correction. He has also contributed to research on quantum communication, studying protocols based on both single photons and continuous-variable optical fields, including quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography.

A significant part of his research concerns the control and mitigation of quantum decoherence, the loss of quantum coherence due to environmental interactions. He has proposed theoretical techniques for decoherence control using both closed-loop and open-loop strategies and has collaborated on experimental demonstrations involving photon polarization qubits.

Vitali has also worked extensively in cavity optomechanics, studying systems in which radiation pressure couples light to micro- and nano-mechanical oscillators. Such systems are investigated as platforms for quantum-limited sensing of forces, masses, and displacements, and for interfacing different physical degrees of freedom across a range of wavelengths. His research in this area has included the study of optomechanical devices for applications in quantum information processing and precision measurements.

In addition, he has investigated entanglement-enhanced sensing methods, including quantum illumination, and their potential applications in detection and measurement technologies.