Summer Cluster: Challenges in Quantum Computation

May 29–Jul. 20, 2018

Small- to medium-scale quantum computers are around the corner, and the biggest upcoming challenges are expected to be algorithmic. What computational tasks can such computers speed up? And how can we test them? More specifically, what are the prospects for quantum simulation, quantum machine learning, and protocols for testing quantum devices? The answers to these questions touch on deep issues and will require an unprecedented collaboration between theoretical computer science (algorithms, complexity theory, cryptography) and physics, chemistry, and mathematics. This summer cluster brought together researchers from these fields to collaborate on formalizing and answering these questions. The third week of the eight-week program, June 11 to 15, was devoted to a workshop exploring the state of the art related to these challenges.

Organizers:

Andrew Childs (University of Maryland), Ignacio Cirac (Max Planck Institute, Garching), Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley), Thomas Vidick (California Institute of Technology)

Long-Term Participants (including Organizers):

Scott Aaronson (University of Texas at Austin), Dorit Aharonov (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Michael Ben-Or (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Dominic Berry (Macquarie University), Raphael Bousso (UC Berkeley), Zvika Brakerski (Weizmann Institute), Anne Broadbent (University of Ottawa), Alessandro Chiesa (UC Berkeley), Andrew Childs (University of Maryland), Ronald de Wolf (CWI and University of Amsterdam), Joe Fitzsimons (Singapore University of Technology and Design and the Centre for Quantum Technologies), Sanjam Garg (UC Berkeley), Daniel Gottesman (Perimeter Institute), Patrick Hayden (Stanford University), Stacey Jeffery (CWI Amsterdam), Richard Jozsa (University of Cambridge), Iordanis Kerenidis (CNRS - Université Paris Diderot), Robin Kothari (Microsoft Research), Zeph Landau (UC Berkeley), James R. Lee (University of Washington), Lin Lin (UC Berkeley), Joel Moore (UC Berkeley), Anand Natarajan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Anupam Prakash (Centre for Quantum Technologies, Singapore), Prasad Raghavendra (UC Berkeley), Ben Reichardt (University of Southern California), Miklos Santha (Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7), Yaoyun Shi (Alibaba USA), Nikhil Srivastava (UC Berkeley), Mario Szegedy (Aliyun Quantum Laboratory), Vinod Vaikuntanathan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley), Thomas Vidick (California Institute of Technology), John Watrous (University of Waterloo), Birgitta Whaley (UC Berkeley), James Whitfield (Dartmouth College), Norman Yao (UC Berkeley)

Visiting Graduate Students and Postdocs:

Adam Bouland (UC Berkeley), Rui Chao (University of Southern California), Alexandru Cojocaru (University of Edinburgh), David Ding (Stanford University), Bill Fefferman (UC Berkeley), András Gilyén (CWI), Ayal Green (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Cupjin Huang (University of Michigan), Jiahui Liu (University of Texas at Austin), Urmila Mahadev (UC Berkeley), Chinmay Nirkhe (UC Berkeley), Jonah Sherman (UC Berkeley), Jalex Stark (Caltech), Yonathan Touati (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Prashant Vasudevan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Quntao Zhuang (UC Berkeley)

Workshops

Challenges in Quantum Computation

Monday, Jun. 11–Friday, Jun. 15, 2018

Organizers:

Thomas Vidick (California Institute of Technology; chair), Andrew Childs (University of Maryland), Ignacio Cirac (Max Planck Institute, Garching), Umesh Vazirani (UC Berkeley)