Quantum Initiative: Quantum Lunch

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121.

The organizing committee includes Malcolm Boshier (P-21), Lukasz Cincio (T-4), Diego Dalvit (T-4), Changhyun Ryu (P-21) , Nikolai Sinitsyn (T-4), Rolando Somma (T-4), Yigit Subasi (T-4), Christopher Ticknor (T-1), and Wojciech Zurek (T-4).

For more information, or to nominate a speaker, contact Yigit Subasi or Lukasz Cincio.

To add your name to the Quantum Lunch email list, contact Amanda Martinez.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Speaker: Sebastian Deffner (UMBC)

Technical Host: Yigit Subasi

TOPIC: Fluctuation theorems go quantum computers

Abstract
Near term quantum hardware promises unprecedented computational advantage. Crucial in its development is the characterization and minimization of computational errors. We will review recent developments in informational quantum fluctuation theorems and propose the use of them to characterize the performance of quantum annealers. We will see that this versatile tool provides simple means to determine whether the quantum dynamics are unital, unitary, and adiabatic, or whether the system is prone to thermal noise. Our proposal was experimentally tested on two generations of the DWave machine, which illustrates the sensitivity of the fluctuation theorem to the smallest aberrations from ideal annealing.