In Conversation with Professor Philip Stamp: Superfluid Helium and Quantum Vacuum Tunnelling

Professor Philip Stamp is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Pacific Institute of Theoretical Physics, known as PITP, which he returned to Canada to establish in 2002. Mostly raised in New Zealand and educated in the United Kingdom, Professor Stamp began his academic life in philosophy and literature before turning to theoretical physics. He has since worked as a physicist in France, Spain, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, and the United States. His research explores many aspects of quantum mechanics, including macroscopic quantum phenomena, quantum tunnelling, quantum gravity, and quantum cosmology. In this episode, we speak about his recent work with collaborators on superfluid helium and quantum vacuum tunnelling. The research uses an ultra-thin film of superfluid helium to examine the Schwinger effect, a famous prediction in quantum electrodynamics in which, under extreme conditions, the quantum vacuum may produce particle–antiparticle pairs. In Professor Stamp’s work, this idea is approached through vortex and anti-vortex pairs emerging in a quantum liquid. Our conversation turns to the meaning of the quantum vacuum, the difficulty of observing the Schwinger effect directly, the relationship between theory and experiment in physics, and finally, the strange beauty of a universe that is, in Professor Stamp’s words, both magical and real.