quantum computing
milhayser | September 26, 2011
On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel investigates the hamstringing of the James Webb Space Telescope. Originally scheduled to launch in 2013 at a cost of $5.1 billion, the JWST was pushed to 2015 and $6.5 billion by a government review panel that faulted NASA mismanagement. But the revised numbers counted on timely infusions of cash, and because "a miserly US Congress" withheld them, the cost of the project ballooned to $8.7 billion, with a new launch date of 2018. Although its unprecedented mirrors are nearly finished—along with its electrical instruments and their housing—the JWST still…
milhayser | September 23, 2011
It seems like every time we turn around, there's another new smartphone or robotic butler pouring coffee in our laps. On Uncertain Principles, the engineering breakthroughs du jour are "technical advances in ion trap quantum computing." Chad Orzel explains, "previous experiments have used optical frequencies to manipulate the states of the ions, using light from very complicated laser systems." Such lasers (though effective) are unwieldy, and researchers are now using simple microwaves to perform the same functions. This promises quantum computers on a chip—eventually. Meanwhile, on the…
drorzel | August 30, 2010Last week, John Baez posted a report on a seminar by Dzimitry Matsukevich on ion trap quantum information issues. In the middle of this, he writes:
Once our molecular ions are cold, how can we get them into specific desired states? Use a mode locked pulsed laser to drive stimulated Raman transitions.
Huh? As far as I can tell, this means "blast our molecular ion with an extremely brief pulse of light: it can then absorb a photon and emit a photon of a different energy, while itself jumping to a state of higher or lower energy."
I saw this, and said "Hey, that's a good topic for a blog post…
drorzel | August 23, 2010I'm a big fan of review articles. For those not in academic science, "review article" means a long (tens of pages) paper collecting together the important results of some field of science, and presenting an overview of the whole thing. These vary somewhat in just how specific they are-- some deal with both experiment and theory, others just theoretical approaches-- and some are more readable than others, but typically, they're written in a way that somebody from outside the field can understand.
These are a great boon to lazy authors, or authors facing tight page limits ("Ref. [1] and…
pontiff | June 17, 2010Congrats to Rahul Jain, Zhengfeng Ji, Sarvagya Upadhyay, and John Watrous for being selected a best paper at STOC 2010 for their paper "QIP=PSPACE". (The best paper award was shared with "An improved LP-based approximation for Steiner Tree" by Jaroslaw Byrka, Fabrizio Grandoni , Thomas Rothvoss and Laura Sanità )
pontiff | June 7, 2010One result of a workshop held in 2008 that "broad research themes within theoretical computer science...that have potential for a major impact in the future, and distill these research directions into compelling "nuggets" that can quickly convey their importance to a layperson" is this set of nuggets. Among the summary of nuggets we find quantum computing and three questions:In the wake of Shor's algorithm, one can identify three basic questions:
(1) First, can quantum computers actually be built? Can they cope with realistic rates of decoherence -- that is, unwanted interaction between a…
pontiff | June 6, 2010Customer X: Hi, D-wave? So, I hear that you have this computer that can be used to solve computationally hard problems. Oh, yes, sorry, should have said a quantum computer, my bad. Well, you know we've got this hard computational problem, [Editor: problem description deleted to protect identity of involved company.] So what do you think, can you solve this problem for me? Great! Let me put you in contact with my technical guy. Yes, I'll wire the money to your account today.
Months later.Customer X: Hi D-Wave, thanks for all your help with getting us set up to use your machine to solve…
pontiff | June 3, 2010Mary Beth Ruskai sends a note about a travel grant program for a quantum information theory conference in Sweden this fall:
US NSF Travel Grant Program for Nordita/Mittag-Leffler Conference on Quantum Information Theory 4-8 Oct. 2010
This program will provide funds to support travel and lodging for US scientists to participate in the International Conference on Quantum Information Theory to be held in Stockholm Sweden during 4-8 October 2010. Information on the conference is available athttp://agenda.albanova.se/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=1440
The program is contingent on funding expected…
pontiff | June 3, 2010Another interview from the Science Watch special topic on quantum computing interview series: Gerard Milburn. Most interestingly is Milburn's comments on linear optics quantum computing funding:SW: How has the field of quantum computing changed in the past decade? Where do you hope to see it go in the next?
No matter what technology is ultimately used for quantum computing, optics will necessarily be used for short- and long-distance communication both within and between quantum computers (as is currently the case for conventional computing).
I was thus somewhat puzzled to learn that the US…
pontiff | May 21, 2010AQIS'10 submission and registration is now open:
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The 10th Asian Conference on
Quantum Information Science (AQIS'10)http://www.qci.jst.go.jp/aqis10/
Tutorials: August 27, 2010
Conference: August 28 - 31, 2010
The University of Tokyo, Japan
Submission Deadline (2 to 10 pages): June 14 (Monday), 2010
Notification of Acceptance: July 12 (Monday), 2010
Final version (2 pages): July 30 (Friday), 2010
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Apologies for cross-postings.
Please send to…
pontiff | May 7, 2010Here's an interview with Daniel Lidar whose was the postdoc who first taught me quantum error correction (and more.) No, not that LIDAR!
Note to all you job seekers, even in your darkest hours know that you have friends out there who are working to change the abysmal state of quantum computing hiring:I would also hope to see a wave of new faculty positions at US institutions for quantum computation theoreticians and experimentalists. We now have the first generation of students and postdocs trained in this field, many of whom are finding it very difficult to land faculty positions in the US…
pontiff | April 15, 2010Over at masteroftheuniverse, the master has posted a great list of prop bets. Among his bets is one that probably won't work on many computer scientists (or it shouldn't if they've had even a decent theory course) based upon the birthday problem. Sometimes the birthday problem is called the birthday paradox, but the problem is no more a paradox than the twin paradox is about twins. The birthday problem has to do with the probability that a set of randomly drawn people share a birthday. In other words, assuming that everyone in a group of N people has an equal probability of being born on a…
pontiff | March 12, 2010The APS March meeting is next week as 10000 physicists invade Portland, Oregon. I hope Powell's bookstore has stocked their science sections well! GQI, the topical group on quantum information, sponsors a good number of sessions at the meeting including sessions with invited talks, focus sessions, and general sessions. Below the fold I'm assembling a list of quantum computing sessions, but before the fold I'd like to point out the invited sessions, which have longer speaking slots where one can actually learn more than the speakers name and research project title, that are sponsored or…
pontiff | March 11, 2010A theoretical condensed matter postdoc of interest to the quantum computing folks:Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Theoretical Condensed Matter and Quantum Information Science at the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, University of Maryland.
Applications are being accepted for physics postdoctoral research positions in quantum information and device theory at the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) at the University of Maryland-College Park. Demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following categories is desired: semiconductor/condensed-matter physics, solid-state quantum computing (e.…
pontiff | March 8, 2010arXiv:1003.1153: Quantum Dating MarketAuthors: O.G. Zabaleta, C.M. ArizmendiAbstract: We consider the dating market decision problem under the quantum mechanics point of view. Quantum states whose associated amplitudes are modified by men strategies are used to represent women. Grover quantum search algorithm is used as a playing strategy. Success is more frequently obtained by playing quantum than playing classic.
pontiff | March 4, 2010Thomson Reuter's website Sciencewatch.com has a special section out on citation and paper data for the last ten years of quantum computing. More below the fold.
The first interesting thing that everyone wants to know about such list is, of course, "who's number 1?!?" Well the most cited paper over the last 10 years according to this survey was "A scheme for efficient quantum computation with linear optics" by Knill, Laflamme, and Milburn (Nature, 409, 46-52 (2001)). Not too surprising given that this paper established a completely new method for building a quantum computer and, equally…
pontiff | March 1, 2010Summer school:We would like to inform you of the upcoming 10th Canadian Summer School on Quantum Information & Research Workshop.
Save the dates: July 17-30, 2010
Location: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
For more information, visit our website: qi10.ca
Contact us: info [atatat] qi10.ca
This summer school on quantum information marks the 10th anniversary of the highly renowned series. This year the emphasis will be on quantum algorithms and models of quantum computation, with particular attention to mathematical methods. This summer school also includes a research workshop…
pontiff | February 18, 2010The twelfth annual SqUINt conference is being held this week and unfortunately I'm missing my favorite conference (though a gaggle of grad students have been sent Santa Fe bound.) The schedule looks really good this year including a great list of invited speakers (Scott Aaronson (MIT), Rainer Blatt (Innsbruck), Matt Hastings (Station Q), Dieter Meschede (Bonn), Keith Schwab (Caltech), and John Watrous (Waterloo)). Notice the awesome mix of theory and experiment...good stuff. Hope everyone who is attending is having a fantastic time: have some green chiles for me please.
pontiff | February 16, 2010It looks like the talks for QIP 2010 are now online.. Sweet, my television for the next few weeks. Well okay the Olympics may sneak in there (and jez NBC really stinks it up: I've never seen a network make men's downhill so boring...if you're going to short the west coast by not showing the events live don't you have a responsibility to at least do a good job? Please, please, Olympic committee let ESPN get the next contract.)
pontiff | February 10, 2010Some confusing headlines:Quantum Theory's Release Date Now 'TBA'Quantum Theory Faces Delay Due to Quality ReasonsQuantum Theory Delayed