Events

Impromptu Poster Session

Please join us for the IQC Student Seminar on Wednesday Nov 23 at noon. This week’s seminar will take place in the form of an impromptu poster practice session, where students will discuss interesting research on the whiteboard. This is to encourage students to talk about their work in progress, while practicing communication skills by presenting to non-experts. It's also a great way to learn how big the field of quantum research is! No prior preparation is necessary.

As always, pizza lunch will be provided to attendees.

ZOOM - IQC Math and CS Seminar - Speaker: Tony Metger, ETH Zurich

To use a cryptographic protocol in practice, one has to prove that it is secure against general attacks: even if an adversary performs a complicated attack involving all of the rounds of the protocol, they cannot compromise security. A much simpler task is to prove security against collective attacks, where the adversary is assumed to behave the same in each round. In this work, we develop a new information-theoretic tool, called the generalised entropy accumulation theorem (GEAT), for reducing security against general attacks to security against collective attacks. ...

IQC Colloquium featuring Professor Jaewan Kim, Professor/Vice-President of Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS), President of Quantum Information Society of Korea (QisK)

A coherent state can be interpreted as a superposition of pseudo-number states with equal weight. Using cross-Kerr nonlinearity two coherent states can be made into a maximal entanglement of pseudo-number states and pseudo-phase states. Some applications of the entanglements of pseudo-number/phase states, such as quDit teleportations, will be discussed.

Categories of Kirchoff Relations

Abstract: I will be talking about the connections between electrical circuits and stabilizer qudit quantum circuits with an eye towards applications to qudit quantum error correction. More formally I will be defining a category dubbed Kirchhoff relations and characterize the maps in this category using parity check matrices. I will then go on to give a universal set of generators for this category and interpret these generators in-terms of electrical elements.

This is work in progress.

Quantum mechanics is the most successful theory of physics, giving us the rule book to model phenomenon at the sub-microscopic scale. Knowing the rule book doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to follow though. Calculating and modelling quantum systems like complex molecules or materials is computationally demanding for modern computers. However, by mimicking the system of interest with another quantum system, we can explore their properties efficiently and learn a great deal about quantum mechanics itself.

Seminar Presentation by Richard Germond, Queen's University

A number of astrophysical and cosmological observations suggest that roughly 85% of the matter in the Universe is composed of dark matter, presumed to be a particle outside the standard model of particle physics. Direct detection experiments look for signatures of a dark matter particle scattering with a sensitive detector; of the different technologies used for this, cryogenic detectors are well-suited for detecting low-mass dark matter due to their low energy thresholds.

Introduction to Majorana Topological Qubits

Abstract: This presentation will introduce some of the experimental approaches to building topological qubits and the theories supporting current research. Beginning from the early toy models that first proposed the formation of Majorana bound states, I aim to convey an understanding of why topological qubits are so resistant to decoherence. I will introduce the “ingredients” necessary to build a Majorana device and some of the challenges involved. Finally, I will discuss the field's current state and what might be next on the journey to making topological quantum computing a reality. Neither an understanding of topology nor quantum algorithms are necessary to enjoy this talk!

IQC Math and CS Seminar on ZOOM - Featuring Chinmay Nirkhe - IBM

Quantum states wear many hats in quantum information: they simultaneously generalize distributions from classical complexity theory, describe quantum mechanical phenomena, and capture the complexity of quantum computation. This myriad of roles makes understanding the complexity of quantum states a central question in quantum complexity theory. In this talk, we will explore the complexity of classically describing physically relevant quantum states. ...

IQC Math CS Seminar - featuring Mario Szegedy, Rutgers University

Motivated by quantum network applications over classical channels, we initiate the study of n-party resource states from which LOCC protocols can create EPR-pairs between any k disjoint pairs of parties. ...

Chemistry Seminar Series – Steve Winter, Wake Forest University

Host: A. Wei Tsen

Quantum materials represent a broad class of systems whose experimental response relies directly on entanglement between their underlying degrees of freedom. Modeling of such materials presents a variety of challenges related to a disparate variety of complex behaviours that manifest at different energy scales, and a typical sensitivity of responses to model parameters. In this field, first-principles approaches often provide a vital bridge between experiments and theoretical models. In this talk, I will introduce our numerical strategies for systematically building low-energy models with local charge, spin, and orbital degrees of freedom of arbitrary complexity. I will discuss the insights that these methods have yielded for frustrated magnetic insulators collectively known as "Kitaev materials", which have prompted a recent explosion of interest in quantum magnets where spin-orbit coupling induces strongly anisotropic and competing magnetic interactions. I will specifically address our recent attempts to understand the magnetic models of few-layer RuCl3 and high-spin d7 Co(II) compounds, which have recently been identified as possible alternative platforms for realising the celebrated Kitaev model.