Quantum Information

One of the major obstacles in quantum information processing is to prevent a quantum bit from decoherence. One powerful approach to protect quantum coherence is dynamical decoupling. I will present some recent progress of diamond-based quantum information processing using dynamical decoupling. The other promising approach is to use topological quantum systems, which are intrinsically insensitive to local perturbations. I will discuss some ideas to create and probe topological quantum systems. Furthermore, I will propose a hybrid platform between topological and conventional quantum systems, which can combine the advantages from both.

Relativistic quantum information theory uses well-known tools coming from quantum information and quantum optics to study quantum effects provoked by gravity and to learn information about the spacetime. One can take advantage of our knowledge about quantum optics and quantum information theory to analyse from a new perspective the effects produced by the gravitational interaction. I will present some results and new ideas in this topic: from experimental proposals for detection of the Unruh and Hawking effects and cosmological implications of gravitationally generated entanglement to quantum simulation of general relativistic settings.

We generalize the result of Bravyi et al. on the stability of the spectral gap for frustration-free, commuting Hamiltonians, by removing the assumption of commutativity and weakening the assumptions needed for stability.

The model of an arbitrarily varying quantum channel will be introduced in strict analogy to the classical definition by Blackwell, Breiman and Thomasian. We will then consider the task of entanglement transmission over such a channel and take a look at the methods, both from classical and quantum information theory, that enter the direct part of our proof of a quantum version of Ahlswede's dichotomy for the capacity of classical arbitrarily varying channels. Differences to the classical setting will be pointed out.

A symmetric informationally complete positive-operator-valued measure (SIC POVM) is a special POVM that is composed of d^2 subnormalized pure projectors with equal pairwise fidelity. It may be considered a fiducial POVM for reasons of its high symmetry and high tomographic efficiency. Most known SIC POVMs are covariant with respect to the Heisenberg-Weyl (HW) group. We show that in prime dimensions the HW group is the unique group that may generate a SIC POVM. In particular, in prime dimensions not equal to three, each group covariant SIC POVM is covariant with respect to a unique HW group. In addition, the symmetry group of the SIC POVM is a subgroup of the Clifford group, which is the normalizer of the HW group. Hence, two SIC POVMs covariant with respect to the HW group are unitarily equivalent if and only if they are on the same orbit of the Clifford group. In dimension three, each group covariant SIC POVM may be covariant with respect to three or nine HW groups, and the symmetry group of the SIC POVM is a subgroup of at least one of the Clifford groups of these HW groups respectively. There may exist two or three orbits of equivalent SIC POVMs for each group covariant SIC POVM, depending on the order of its symmetry group.

We review situations under which a standard quantum adiabatic condition fails. We reformulate the problem of adiabatic evolution as the problem of Hamiltonian eigenpath traversal, and give convergence conditions in terms of the length of the eigenpath and the minimum energy gap of the Hamiltonians. We introduce a randomized evolution method that can be used to traverse the eigenpath and prove its convergence and cost. We then describe more efficient methods for the same task and show that their implementation complexity is close to optimal.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is an application of quantum theory as its security relies on quantum foundations, at the same time there is development in the information-theoretic point of view to quantum theory. The security is related to impossible quantum performance, for instance, neither perfect quantum cloning nor perfect quantum state discrimination are possible. In this talk, I would like to discuss issues relevant to practical and fundamental sides of QKD: i) toward characterization of quantum correlations from which a secret key can be distilled, ii) determination whether quantum states shared by two honest parties in distance are entangled or separable, and iii) limitations on quantum performance by fundamental principles in quantum theory.

We find analytic models that can perfectly transfer, without state initialization or remote collaboration, arbitrary functions in two- and three-dimensional interacting bosonic and fermionic networks. This provides for the possible experimental implementation of state transfer through bosonic or fermionic atoms trapped in optical lattices. A significant finding is that the state of a spin qubit can be perfectly transferred through a fermionic system. Families of Hamiltonians are described that are related to the linear models and that enable the perfect transfer of arbitrary functions. Furthermore, we propose methods for eliminating certain types of errors

Topological order is a new kind of collective order which appears in two-dimensional quantum systems such as the fractional quantum Hall effect and brings about rather unusual particles: unlike bosons or fermions these anyons obey exotic statistics and can be exploited to perform quantum computation. Topological order also implies that quantum states at low energies exhibit a very subtle, yet intricate inner structure. Remarkably, both phenomena can be studied in relatively simple spin systems (like Kitaev's quantum double models and the ubiquitous toric code) which in fact capture the essential properties of entire topological phases of matter in many important cases. What is the relationship between these topological phases? Reviewing recent work I will explain how they arrange themselves in a landscape of dualities and hierarchies. In particular, I will focus on two aspects: first, a duality between electric and magnetic quasiparticles in generalized quantum double models and second, a hierarchy construction of quantum states which are related by the condensation of topological charges.

The counter-intuitive phenomena in quantum mechanics are often based on the counter-factual (or virtual) processes. The famous example is the Hardy paradox, which has been recently solved in two independent experiments. Also, the delayed choice experiment and one of quantum descriptions of the closed time like curves can be also examples of the counter-intuitive phenomena. The counter-factual processes can be characterized by the weak value initiated by Yakir Aharonov and his colleagues. In this talk, I will introduce the weak value from the probability theory and the connection to the counter-factual processes in these examples.

In this talk I present recent work on combining game theory, statistics, and control theory. This combination provides new techniques for predicting / controlling any system comprising humans, human groups (e.g., firms, tribes), and / or adaptive automated systems (e.g., reinforcement learning robots). As illustrations, I will focus on three projects: 1) Suppressing flutter in an airplane wing by controlling a set of autonomous micro-flaps at its trailing edge. 2) First raising taxes in a human economy, and then lowering them back to the starting values, to steer the economy to a Pareto superior equilibrium. 3) Designing a dynamic auction of arrival slots at a weather-impacted airport, to maximize social welfare.

In this talk (based on arXiv:1001.0354) we give a quantum statistical interpretation for the Kauffmann bracket polynomial state sum <K> for the Jones polynomial. We use this quantum mechanical interpretation to give a new quantum algorithm for computing the Jones polynomial. This algorithm is useful for its conceptual simplicity, and it applies to all values of the polynomial variable that lie on the unit circle in the complex plane. Letting C(K) denote the Hilbert space for this model, there is a natural unitary transformation U from C(K) to itself such that <K> = <F|U|F> where |F> is a sum over basis states for C(K). The quantum algorithm arises directly from this formula via the Hadamard Test. We then show that the framework for our quantum model for the bracket polynomial is a natural setting for Khovanov homology. The Hilbert space C(K) of our model has basis in one-to-one correspondence with the enhanced states of the bracket state summmation and is isomorphic with the chain complex for Khovanov homology with coefficients in the complex numbers. We show that for the Khovanov boundary operator d defined on C(K) we have the relationship dU + Ud = 0. Consequently, the unitary operator U acts on the Khovanov homology, and we therefore obtain a direct relationship between Khovanov homology and this quantum algorithm for the Jones polynomial. The formula for the Jones polynomial as a graded Euler characteristic is now expressed in terms of the eigenvalues of U and the Euler characteristics of the eigenspaces of U in the homology. The quantum algorithm given here is inefficient, and so it remains an open problem to determine better quantum algorithms that involve both the Jones polynomial and the Khovanov homology.