Center for Quantum Information and Control

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

Quantum information science (QIS) is the interdisciplinary field that investigates how to use systems obeying the laws of quantum mechanics to perform information-processing tasks that cannot be performed efficiently using conventional information-processing systems. This project funds center-wide research and outreach activities of the Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC). The Center involves the efforts of four faculty members at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and one at the University of Arizona (UA). The goal of research at CQuIC is to combine the abstract understanding of QIS that comes from mathematical physics and computer science with the practical knowledge of physical systems that comes from physics, in order to design practical quantum-information-processing protocols and to implement such protocols in laboratories at UNM and UA. CQuIC's chief scientific-outreach activity is the administration and organization of the SQuInT Network, a consortium of 26 node institutions, including research universities, undergraduate colleges, national and industrial laboratories, and international centers for QIS research. The SQuInT Annual Workshop, which had its seventeenth installment in February 2015, has grown to be one of the major scientific meetings in QIS, unique in its integration of physics and information-science talks and its emphasis on presentations by a mix of senior personnel, postdocs, and students. This project provides partial, but substantial support for the SQuInT Annual Workshop. The research to be carried out under this project has two different, but closely related focuses. The first is development of fundamental techniques for preparation of quantum states, control of quantum dynamics, and precision measurement, together with verification of any of these three. Some of the proposed research is theoretical and platform independent: Investigate in-situ characterization of errors in quantum information processing (QIP) protocols using syndrome data from quantum error correction. Other research is tightly coupled theory-experiment development and refinement of control toolkits for particular quantum systems, in this case, optical photons and cesium atomic ensembles: Develop and implement sophisticated techniques for state, process, and detector (POVM) tomography in the 16-dimensional ground hyperfine manifold of the cesium atom, and develop and implement techniques to control and squeeze the collective spin of atomic ensembles consisting of a thousand to a million cesium atoms. The second focus is application of these control techniques to QIP tasks. Some of this work is primarily theoretical: Investigate the potential, capabilities, and robustness of analog quantum simulation, with particular attention to the prospects for boson sampling. Other research is tightly coupled theory-experiment application of control techniques to perform QIP tasks in our laboratory systems: Implement the quantum kicked top in the 16-dimensional ground manifold of cesium, and implement sophisticated techniques to discriminate optical-frequency coherent states for enhanced optical communication.