Quantum Simulation and Quantum State Engineering: Prospects and Challenges
Abstract: Analogue and digital quantum simulation might offer solutions to important but otherwise intractable models. Yet challenges remain, such as heating in analogue simulators and noise in digital quantum devices. My theory group seeks to guide experimental setups and construct methods for implementing quantum simulation. I will review our theory work and experimental progress in using atoms in optical lattices as analogue simulators to probe the phase diagram of the Fermi-Hubbard model. I will also discuss digital quantum simulation in near term devices. Here noise limits coherence and therefore gate depth. I will discuss new ideas for constructing compact quantum algorithms for unbiased digital quantum simulation.
Our research also explores directions for new and interesting experiments that can probe fundamentals of quantum many-body states on near-term quantum devices. I will focus on graph states which have applications in measurement-based quantum computing, quantum networking, and quantum metrology. We introduce a formalism for construction of self-loop graph states as robust quantum states hosting symmetry protected topological order that tolerate certain errors. I will discuss how graph states, and generalizations, offer important quantum resource states for atomic, molecular, and optical setups.
Bio: Vito Scarola is a Professor of Physics at Virginia Tech. Research directions include algorithms for quantum simulation, modeling of quantum computing hardware, quantum analogue simulation, and topological states of matter. He received his PhD in 2002 from the Pennsylvania State University. After a postdoctoral research position at the University of Maryland, he held a joint postdoctoral research position at the University of California Berkeley Quantum Information & Computation Center and the ETH Zürich Computational Physics Center. He is a recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award.
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