Events

Title: : Optimal Item Pricing in Online Combinatorial Auctions

Abstract: I will present a paper by Correa, Cristi, Fielbaum, Pollner, and Weinberg. The paper studies the online combinatorial auction problem when buyers are interested in sets of size at most d. They show that there exist item prices such that the posted price mechanism under these prices results in an allocation that is (d+1)-approximate with respect to the offline benchmark. They show the existence of these prices through a novel use of Brouwer's fixed point theorem.

Title:Learning quantum states

Abstract: Suppose we are given a sequence of quantum registers initialized to the same quantum state rho, and would like to learn the state rho. That is, we would like to design an algorithm that produces a classical description of an approximation to the state. How many copies of rho dowe need to be able to produce a suitable approximation? This talk will be a gentle introduction to the problem and related results.

Title: The Landscape of Quantum Computing

Abstract: Quantum computers will be able to break all the cryptography we have relied on for the last 4 decades, but when will they have this power? In this talk I will give a high-level overview of where quantum computing technologies are today, the path they will need to take, and what kind of discoveries could help or hinder progress in quantum computing.