Flying is easy once you forget about the feathers and focus on the wings.

Hi! My name is Gal Ness, and I am an applied scientist at Amazon. I have a physics background - earned my Ph.D. in the experimental group of prof. Yoav Sagi at the Technion. In general, I thrive on tackling challenging problems by analytically purifying their underlying functionality and inventing unconventional solutions.

Find me on:


Following is a list of publications I co-authored with presentations I gave.
Citations are tracked by Google Scholar (slow crawler) and ResearchGate (faster).

Journal papers

Gal Ness, Manolo R. Lam, Wolfgang Alt, Dieter Meschede, Yoav Sagi, and Andrea Alberti,

Observing crossover between quantum speed limits

Science Advances (2021)
TL;DR First experimental observation of the transition between the two fundamental speed limits in a multi-level system which set the ultimate rate of quantum computation and other quantum applications.

Conferences
  • Quantum Optics Obergurgl 2022 (Austria, 2022).
  • Helen Diller Quantum Center Quantum Retreat (Israel, 2021). Watch it:
  • VI-EGAS52: The 52nd Conference of the European Group on Atomic Systems (virtual, 2021).
  • DAMOP 2021: The 52nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (virtual, 2021).
  • Unmasked - Open Quantum Systems in the Golan (Israel, 2021).
  • Helen Diller Quantum Center quantum science prize (virtual, 2020). Best presentation award


Media coverage

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Ness2021,
author    = {Gal Ness and Manolo R. Lam and Wolfgang Alt and Dieter Meschede and Yoav Sagi and Andrea Alberti},
journal   = {Science Advances},
title     = {Observing crossover between quantum speed limits},
year      = {2021},
month     = {dec},
number    = {52},
volume    = {7},
doi       = {10.1126/sciadv.abj9119},
publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science ({AAAS})},
}






Gal Ness, Andrea Alberti, and Yoav Sagi,

Quantum speed limit for states with a bounded energy spectrum

Physical Review Letters (2022)
TL;DR Introduces a third experimentally relevant quantum speed limit, on top of the two elementary bounds discovered in '45 and '98. These limits restrict how quickly a quantum system can change states.

Conferences
  • Technion symposium in honor of the 2022 Wolf Prize Laureates in Physics (Israel, 2022).


Media coverage

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Ness2022,
author    = {Gal Ness and Andrea Alberti and Yoav Sagi},
journal   = {Physical Review Letters},
title     = {Quantum Speed Limit for States with a Bounded Energy Spectrum},
year      = {2022},
month     = {sep},
number    = {29},
pages     = {140403},
volume    = {129},
doi       = {10.1103/physrevlett.129.140403},
publisher = {American Physical Society ({APS})},
}






Gal Ness, Constantine Shkedrov, Yanay Florshaim, Oriana K. Diessel, Jonas von Milczewski, Richard Schmidt, and Yoav Sagi,

Observation of a Smooth Polaron-Molecule Transition in a Degenerate Fermi Gas

Physical Review X (2020)
         Featured in Physics
         Awarded the Jacobs publication excellence prize
TL;DR Experimental and theoretical investigation of a fundamental transition emerges when the interaction in a highly imbalanced quantum (Fermi) system varies.

Conferences
  • Helen Diller Quantum Center Quantum Retreat Day (Israel, 2021). Watch it: . Best presentation award
  • IPS2021: The 66th Annual Meeting of the Israel Physical Society (virtual, 2021).
  • Selected to be presented in the 1st young researchers' session of the Quantum Science Seminar (virtual, 2020). Watch it:
  • IPS2020: The 65th Annual Meeting of the Israel Physical Society (Israel, 2020).
  • QUEST2019: Quantum Entanglement Science & Technology workshop. (Israel, 2019).
  • MCQST–Technion Symposium on Quantum Science and Technology (Germany, 2019).
  • MICE2019: Molecules, Trapped Ions and Cold Atom Engineering (Israel, 2019). Best poster award


Media coverage

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Ness2020,
author    = {Gal Ness and Constantine Shkedrov and Yanay Florshaim and Oriana K. Diessel and Jonas von Milczewski and Richard Schmidt and Yoav Sagi},
journal   = {Physical Review X},
title     = {Observation of a Smooth Polaron-Molecule Transition in a Degenerate {F}ermi Gas},
year      = {2020},
month     = {oct},
number    = {4},
pages     = {041019},
volume    = {10},
doi       = {10.1103/physrevx.10.041019},
publisher = {American Physical Society ({APS})},
}






Gal Ness, Anastasiya Vainbaum, Constantine Shkedrov, Yanay Florshaim, and Yoav Sagi,

Single-exposure absorption imaging of ultracold atoms using deep learning

Physical Review Applied (2020)
TL;DR Exploits deep neural net to enable single-shot imaging of ultracold matter in enhanced quality over the conventional double-shot approach. This tool is shared with the AMO community using the absDL repository.

Conferences
  • CLEO2020: Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (virtual, 2020). Reference in proceedings below. Watch it:
  • MICE2019: Molecules, Trapped Ions and Cold Atom Engineering (Israel, 2019).


Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Ness2020a,
author    = {Gal Ness and Anastasiya Vainbaum and Constantine Shkedrov and Yanay Florshaim and Yoav Sagi},
journal   = {Physical Review Applied},
title     = {Single-Exposure Absorption Imaging of Ultracold Atoms Using Deep Learning},
year      = {2020},
month     = {jul},
number    = {1},
pages     = {014011},
volume    = {14},
doi       = {10.1103/physrevapplied.14.014011},
publisher = {American Physical Society ({APS})},
}






Gal Ness, Constantine Shkedrov, Yanay Florshaim, and Yoav Sagi,

Realistic shortcuts to adiabaticity in optical transfer

New Journal of Physics (2018)
         Featured in Focus on Shortcuts to Adiabaticity
TL;DR A novel technique for rapidly shuttling ultracold gas while suppressing excitations, a key element in accelerating atom-based quantum computers.

Conferences
  • Invited colloquium at the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bonn (Germany, 2019).
  • IPS2018: The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Israel Physical Society (Israel, 2018).
  • Les Houches predoc school on Ultracold Fermions (France, 2018).
  • The second Annual symposium on Quantum Science and Quantum Engineering (Israel, 2018).
  • IPS2017: The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Israel Physical Society (Israel, 2017). Best poster award
  • I-CORE: Israeli Centers Of Research Excellence Conference on Atomic-Molecular-Optics Physics (Israel, 2017).


Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Ness2018,
author    = {Gal Ness and Constantine Shkedrov and Yanay Florshaim and Yoav Sagi},
journal   = {New Journal of Physics},
title     = {Realistic shortcuts to adiabaticity in optical transfer},
year      = {2018},
month     = sep,
number    = {9},
pages     = {095002},
volume    = {20},
doi       = {10.1088/1367-2630/aadcc1},
publisher = {{IOP} Publishing},
}






Constantine Shkedrov, Meny Menashes, Gal Ness, Anastasiya Vainbaum, Ehud Altman, and Yoav Sagi,

Absence of heating in a uniform Fermi gas created by periodic driving

Physical Review X (2022)
TL;DR First realization of a ''box'' trap for 40K atoms enabled by a new approach for generating flat potentials, avoiding single- and many-body excitations.

Conferences

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Shkedrov2022,
author    = {Constantine Shkedrov and Meny Menashes and Gal Ness and Anastasiya Vainbaum and Ehud Altman and Yoav Sagi},
journal   = {Physical Review X},
title     = {Absence of Heating in a Uniform {F}ermi Gas Created by Periodic Driving},
year      = {2022},
month     = {mar},
number    = {1},
pages     = {011041},
volume    = {12},
doi       = {10.1103/physrevx.12.011041},
publisher = {American Physical Society ({APS})},
}






Constantine Shkedrov, Gal Ness, Yanay Florshaim, and Yoav Sagi,

In situ momentum distribution measurement of a quantum degenerate Fermi gas using Raman spectroscopy

Physical Review A (2020)
TL;DR Momentum distribution of a weakly-interacting Fermi gas is directly extracted from the Raman spectra, without ballistic expansion.

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Shkedrov2020,
author    = {Constantine Shkedrov and Gal Ness and Yanay Florshaim and Yoav Sagi},
journal   = {Physical Review A},
title     = {mph{In situ} momentum-distribution measurement of a quantum degenerate {F}ermi gas using {R}aman spectroscopy},
year      = {2020},
month     = {jan},
number    = {1},
pages     = {013609},
volume    = {101},
doi       = {10.1103/physreva.101.013609},
publisher = {American Physical Society ({APS})},
}






Constantine Shkedrov, Yanay Florshaim, Gal Ness, Andrey Gandman, and Yoav Sagi,

High Sensitivity rf Spectroscopy of a Strongly-Interacting Fermi Gas

Physical Review Letters (2018)
TL;DR New rf spectroscopy technique of unprecedented sensitivity reveals precise properties of the BCS-BEC crossover in strongly-interacting Fermi gas.

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@Article{Shkedrov2018,
author    = {Constantine Shkedrov and Yanay Florshaim and Gal Ness and Andrey Gandman and Yoav Sagi},
journal   = {Physical Review Letters},
title     = {High-Sensitivity rf Spectroscopy of a Strongly Interacting {F}ermi Gas},
year      = {2018},
month     = {aug},
number    = {9},
pages     = {093402},
volume    = {121},
doi       = {10.1103/physrevlett.121.093402},
publisher = {American Physical Society ({APS})},
}






ArXiv Preprints

Gal Ness, Amit Oved, and Itzik Kakon,

Derivative Based Focal Plane Array Nonuniformity Correction

arXiv:1702.06118 (2017)
TL;DR A novel method for auto-calibration of infrared detectors, circumventing the need for mechanical shutters.

Conferences
  • OASIS6: The 6th International Conference and Exhibition on Optics and Electro-Optics (Israel, 2017).


Cite it!
(BibTeX code)
 @Article{Ness2017,
author  = {Gal Ness and Amit Oved and Itzik Kakon},
journal = {arXiv preprint},
title   = {Derivative Based Focal Plane Array Nonuniformity Correction},
year    = {2017},
month   = feb,
eprint  = {1702.06118},
}






Conference proceedings

Gal Ness, Anastasiya Vainbaum, Constantine Shkedrov, Yanay Florshaim, and Yoav Sagi,

Single-Shot Absorption Imaging of Ultracold Atoms using Deep-Neural-Network

CLEO, Quantum Optics in Atomic Ensembles, FW4C.7 (2020)

In proceeding of the 2020 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), 10–15 May 2020, San Jose, CA, USA (virtual).

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@InProceedings{Ness2020b,
author       = {Gal Ness and Anastasiya Vainbaum and Constantine Shkedrov and Yanay Florshaim and Yoav Sagi},
booktitle    = {2020 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO)},
title        = {Single-Shot Absorption Imaging of Ultracold Atoms Using Deep-Neural-Network},
year         = {2020},
month        = may,
number       = {10},
organization = {IEEE},
pages        = {FW4C--7},
publisher    = {Optica Publishing Group},
url          = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9192600},
}






Joan Adler, Gal Ness, and Ahmad Kiswani,

GPUs in a computational physics course

Journal of Physics: Conference Series, CCP2016 (2017)

In proceeding of the 28th annual IUPAP Conference on Computational Physics, 10–14 July 2016, Pretoria, South Africa.

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@InProceedings{Adler2017,
author    = {Joan Adler and Gal Nissim and Ahmad Kiswani},
title     = {{GPUs} in a computational physics course},
year      = {2017},
month     = oct,
pages     = {012017},
publisher = {{IOP} Publishing},
volume    = {905},
doi       = {10.1088/1742-6596/905/1/012017},
journal   = {Journal of Physics: Conference Series},
}






In preparation

Manolo R. Lam, Gal Ness, Wolfgang Alt, Dieter Meschede, Yoav Sagi, and Andrea Alberti,

Holographic reconstruction of a matter wave





Anastasiya Vainbaum, Gal Ness, Amir Stern, and Yoav Sagi,

Direct detection of quasiparticles in a unitary Fermi gas





• Roy Elkabetz, Gal Ness, and Sarah Keren,

Globalness of a multi-agent utility function





Theses

Gal Ness,

From One to Many: Quantum Dynamics and Interactions of a Single Atom Coupled to Many Degrees of Freedom

Ph.D. dissertation (2022)

Submitted to: Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, Physics department.

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)
@PhdThesis{Ness2022Thesis,
author = {Gal Ness},
school = {Technion --- Israel Institute of Technology, Physics department},
title  = {From One to Many: Quantum Dynamics and Interactions of a Single Atom Coupled to Many Degrees of Freedom},
year   = {2022},
url    = {https://phsites.technion.ac.il/sagi/publications/},
}






Gal Ness,

Non-Adiabatic Optical Transport of a Quantum Degenerate Fermi Gas

M.Sc. thesis (2018)

Submitted to: Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, Physics department.

Cite it!
(BibTeX code)

@MastersThesis{Ness2018Thesis,
author = {Gal Ness},
school = {Technion --- Israel Institute of Technology, Physics department},
title  = {Non-Adiabatic Optical Transport of a Quantum Degenerate {F}ermi Gas},
year   = {2018},
url    = {https://phsites.technion.ac.il/sagi/publications/},
}