Seminar

Detector Imperfections in QKD

Very often, in theory, device and implementation imperfections are assumed to be ideal to make the theory simpler. However, before we can practically use these devices, these assumptions must either be removed or justified. I will talk about some techniques to rigorously deal with imperfect detectors within the context of QKD.

Ojas Parekh, Sandia National Laboratories

Quantum Max Cut (QMC) is a QMA-hard instance of 2-Local Hamiltonian (2-LH) that is closely related to the well-studied antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model (AFHM). Finding maximal energy states of QMC is equivalent to finding ground states of AFHM; however, the approximability of the former is related to the classical Max Cut problem.

Join us for Quantum Today, where we sit down with researchers from the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) to talk about their work, its impact and where their research may lead.

Impromptu Poster Session

Students joining will be divided into groups and discuss each other's current work using the whiteboard. 

Join the seminar in QNC 1201!

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RAC Journal Club Series featuring Bhaskaran Muralidharan, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

IQC Alum Lecture Series: Galit Anikeeva, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

The Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) alum Galit Anikeeva will talk about her research since IQC, at Stanford, MIT, and beyond - at first focusing on quantum error correction, and then most recently on tentative connections between chaos and Hamiltonian simulation. She will also highlight how lessons from her time at IQC have shaped her path through undergraduate research and into graduate school, especially welcoming questions from younger students. 

Quantum Linear Solvers and Their Applications

I will talk about the quantum algorithms developed by block-encoding techniques for solving linear system of equations. We will see what sorts of speed-ups have been proved or could be expected, while exploiting a quantum linear solver as a subroutine, for tasks ranging from solving PDEs to sampling from Gibbs distributions.

Join the seminar on Zoom or in QNC 1201!
Meeting link: IQC Student Seminar

IQC Alum Lecture Series: Ben Criger, Cambridge Quantum

The possibility for quantum computers to outcompete classical high-performance computers at their own game looms tantalizingly on the horizon. The main obstacle to performing large-scale computations remains the cascade of small inaccuracies on individual components throughout large quantum circuits. Since the 1990s, techniques have been invented for suppressing these errors, principally within academia.

Bhaskaran Muralidharan - Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

Semiconductor nanowire-superconductor hybrid systems provide a promising platform for hosting Majorana zero modes. However, the conclusive experimental detection of these exotic modes is a much debated and contentious issue. In this talk, we will describe conductance spectroscopy measurements and the current experimental status on their detection.

Xiao Mi, Google

A fertile ground of exploration for NISQ quantum computers is the study of quantum phases and their associated transitions into chaotic regimes. Sharp growths of quantum correlation and entanglement often accompany quantum phases near their critical points, providing opportunities for quantum computational advantage. Furthermore, the discovery of any robust quantum order in, for example, topological phases of matter may also enable new error-correction paradigms. I will present two recent experiments studying quantum phases of matter with superconducting qubits.