Quantum computing:

A brief introduction

Speaker: Akshaya J

Venue : HSB 209

Date : 14th February, 2020 (Friday)

Time : 5.30 p.m.

Abstract

The field of quantum information science and technology has made remarkable progress over the last decade. Taking off from the tremendous advancements in experimental techniques, a lot of effort is underway in building a quantum computer, an idea first envisioned in the early 1980’s. We are now in the era of Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, where industries like Google, IBM etc already have quantum devices with up to hundreds of quantum bits. This provides a potential platform for realizing various quantum tasks that outperform their classical counterparts.

In this talk, we will give a brief overview of quantum computing. We will see some of the key features – superposition and entanglement - specific to quantum systems. We will then demonstrate a simple case where quantum computing provides an exponential speed-up over classical computing. We will then discuss ‘decoherence’, which manifests as noise on quantum systems due to unavoidable interactions with the environment. We will wrap up with a brief overview on quantum error correction (QEC), a technique to counteract decoherence. Finally, we will illustrate some of these aspects on the IBM Quantum Experience as well.

About the speaker

Akshaya J completed her B.E in electronics and communication engineering in Chennai from a college affiliated to Anna University. She then went on to teach ‘AS’ and ‘A’ level physics in a Cambridge board-based international school, in Chennai. She graduated with an MSc degree in physics from Hyderabad Central University. Currently, she is a research scholar in Department of Phyisics at IIT Madras, working with Dr.Prabha Mandayam in quantum information and computing (theory). Her research interests include quantum error correction, fault-tolerant quantum computation, as well as quantum cryptography.