JQI

Since the discovery of Shor’s factoring algorithm, there has been a sustained interest in finding more such examples of quantum advantage, that is, tasks where a quantum device can outperform its classical counterpart. While the universal, programmable quantum computers that can run Shor’s algorithm represent one direction in which to search for quantum advantage, they are certainly not the only one. In this dissertation, we study the theory of quantum advantage along two alternative avenues: sensing and simulation.

Quantum information science offers a remarkable promise: by thinking practically about how quantum systems can be put to work to solve computational and information processing tasks, we gain novel insights into the foundations of quantum theory and computer science. Or, conversely, by (re)considering the fundamental physical building blocks of computers and sensors, we enable new technologies, with major impacts for computational and experimental physics.

Topological band structures are well known to produce symmetry-protected chiral edge states which transport particles unidirectionally. These same effects can be harnessed in the frequency domain using a spin-1/2 system subject to periodic drives.

Abstract: This talk will present our work on the observation of super-radiance in a cloud of cold atoms driven by a laser. We start from an elongated cloud of laser cooled atoms that we excite either perpendicularly or along its main axis. This situation bears some similarities with cavity quantum electrodynamics: here the cavity mode is replaced by the diffraction mode of the elongated cloud. We observe superradiant pulses of light after population inversion.

Abstract: Today’s programmable quantum simulators offer versatile platforms for exploring many-body phases and dynamics in correlated quantum systems. In this talk, we present some new—and surprising—insights into nonequilibrium quantum dynamics inspired by such recent experimental advances. First, we focus on understanding the evolution of closed quantum systems driven through a phase transition, which is crucial for quantum state preparation and adiabatic algorithms.

A variety of quantum algorithms employ Pauli operators as a convenient basis for studying the spectrum or evolution of Hamiltonians or measuring multibody observables. One strategy to reduce circuit depth in such algorithms involves simultaneous diagonalization of Pauli operators generating unitary evolution operators or observables of interest.

The concept of antidistinguishability of quantum states has been studied to investigate foundational questions in quantum mechanics. It is also called quantum state elimination, because the goal of such a protocol is to guess which state, among finitely many chosen at random, the system is not prepared in (that is, it can be thought of as the first step in a process of elimination). Antidistinguishability has been used to investigate the reality of quantum states, ruling out psi-epistemic ontological models of quantum mechanics [Pusey et al., Nat.