Research

Publications:

• S. Trandafir, A. Cabello. Two fundamental solutions to the rigid Kochen-Specker set problem and the solution to the minimal Kochen-Specker set problem under one assumption. Physical Review A 111 (5), 052204. (2025)

• S. Trandafir, A. Cabello. Optimal conversion of Kochen-Specker sets into bipartite perfect quantum strategies. Physical Review A 111 (2), 022408. (2025)

• M. Mishna, S. Trandafir. Estimating and computing Kronecker coefficients: a vector partition function approach. Australasian Journal of Combinatorics 90(2), Pages 121–154. (2024)

• E. Briand, MH. Rosas Celis, S. Trandafir. All linear symmetries of the SU(3) tensor multiplicities. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 57 (1), 015205-1. (2023)

• S. Trandafir, P. Lisoněk, A. Cabello. Irreducible Magic Sets for n-Qubit Systems. Physical Review Letters 129 (20), 200401. (2022)

Preprints:

• A. Lillo, M. Rosas, S. Trandafir. On weary drivers, records of trees, and parking functions. arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.22145 (2025) 

• S. Trandafir, C. Kelleher, A. Cabello. Memory cost of quantum contextuality with Pauli observables. arXiv preprint arxiv:2506.06869 (2025)

• S. Trandafir, JR. Gonzales-Ureta, A. Cabello. Perfect quantum strategies with small input cardinality. arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.21473 (2024)

• S. Trandafir. External columns and chambers of vector partition functions. arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.13112. (2023) [accepted by Discrete & Computational Geometry]

Talks:

• Memory cost of quantum contextuality with Pauli observables. (joint work with Colm Kelleher and Adán Cabello). 2nd FoQaCiA workshop. Braga, Portugal. (June 2025)

• Vector partition functions and applications. Seminaire Lotharingen de Combinatoire 91. Salobreña, Spain. (March 2024)

• Contextual Configurations. 10th Slovenian Conference on Graph Theory. Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. (June 2023)

• Contextual Hypergraphs. CanaDAM 2023. Winnipeg, Canada. (June 2023)

• Vector partition functions arising from representation theory. Universidad de Sevilla Algebra Seminar. Sevilla, Spain (June 2022)

• Littlewood-Richardson coefficients from the vector partition perspective. Joint Mathematics Meetings. Held virtually. (April 2022)

• Effective asymptotic enumeration of vector partitions with restricted parts. Universidad de Sevilla Algebra Seminar. Sevilla, Spain (October 2019)

Posters:

• Contextual configurations. CODESCO’24. Sevilla, Spain. (July 2024)

• Linear factors of Littlewood-Richardson polynomials. ISM Discovery School. Montreal, Canada. (May 2024)

• Littlewood-Richardson coefficients from the vector partition perspective. BIRS Dynamical Algebraic Combinatorics. Kelowna, Canada (virtual). (November 2021)

• An analytic approach to computing Kronecker coefficients. Jornada IMUS-UMA. Sevilla, Spain. (November 2019)

• Analytic approach to computing Kronecker coefficients. Canadian Mathematical Society Winter Meeting. Vancouver, Canada. (December 2018)

• Kochen-Specker Proofs on Incidence Structures. UBC worskhop on Algebraic Structures in Quantum Computation. Vancouver, Canada (May 2016)

Workshops:

• Analytic combinatorics in several variables. American Mathematics Society. San Jose, USA. (April 2022)

• Analytic combinatorics in several variables. American Mathematics Society Mathematics Research Communities. (2021)

• Design of a four-qubit quantum gate. PIMS Industrial Problem Solving Workshop. Saskatoon, Canada. (June 2015)

Research (other):

• I was a research/teaching assistant for the mathematical research community: Analytic combinatorics in several variables. American Mathematics Society Mathematics Research Communities. Online. (2021)

• I did a MITACS internship at D-Wave Systems Inc. Burnaby, Canada. (2016-2017)

• I did a volunteer term at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Center. Vancouver, Canada. (2012)

• I did a volunteer term at Tiberiu Popoviciu Institute of Numerical Analysis. Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2010)