IMA CONFERENCE ON

QUANTUM COMPUTING AND COMPLEXITY OF QUANTUM SIMULATION

31 March - 2 April 2009

Institute for Mathematical Sciences,
Imperial College, London UK

Supported by:

EC Network Qubit Applications

*** Support is available for postgraduate students or postdoctoral researchers within 5 years of gaining their PhD and also for researchers coming from within QIP IRC ***

INVITED SPEAKERS | PROGRAMME | REGISTRATION

REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Richard Jozsa (University of Bristol) (Chair)
Martin Plenio (Imperial College)
Anthony Sudbery (University of York)
Vlatko Vedral (University of Leeds).

SCOPE
Quantum computing represents the prodigiously fertile union of quantum physics with the theory of computation and especially issues of computational complexity. It is known that quantum processes can offer solutions to some information processing tasks that are exponentially more efficient than any known classical methods. Perhaps the most celebrated example is Shor's 1994 quantum algorithm for integer factorisation.

In recent years there has been a surge of activity in our understanding of quantum computational power and its prospective applicability and limitations. A variety of problems in diverse areas of mathematics, has been identified (so-called BQP-complete
problems) that have efficient quantum algorithms and also embody the full power of efficient quantum computation. In quantum many body physics (including study of quantum circuits, of local hamiltonians, and of further formalisms such as measurement based
computing) some problems have been shown, surprisingly, to admit efficient classical solution while others (e.g. certain ground state properties of local hamiltonians) are likely to be computationally intractible, having been shown to be so-called QMA-complete.
Quantum entanglement is often regarded as an essential ingredient in these considerations and there has been considerable development in understanding its scaling behaviour in many body systems.

This conference is devoted to recent theoretical developments in these areas and related issues. Invited speakers will be requested to include overview material (in addition to recent research) with the aim of making the essential ideas of these important developments accessible to a broader audience of QIP researchers.