News
Entangling undergraduate students with quantum success
Each year, the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) invites top undergraduate students from around the world to the University of Waterloo for the opportunity to immerse themselves in quantum information science and technology. This program, the Undergraduate School on Experimental Quantum Information Processing (USEQIP), provides participants with lectures on quantum information theory and experimental approaches to quantum devices, as well as over 30 hours of hands-on laboratory and experimental exploration.
IQC is an international destination for quantum innovation
On World Quantum Day, the Institute for Quantum Computing celebrates progress and momentum.
Cosmic rays, quantum bits and underground labs intersect to advance the future of computing
A new collaboration between researchers from the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo, SNOLAB near Sudbury, Ontario, and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden has been awarded a new grant to investigate the impact of radiation and cosmic rays on quantum technologies.
Events
Recent progress in Hamiltonian learning
CS/Math Seminar - Yu Tong, Caltech
Quantum-Nano Centre, 200 University Ave West, Room QNC 1201 + ZOOM Waterloo, ON CA N2L 3G1
In the last few years a number of works have proposed and improved provably efficient algorithms for learning the Hamiltonian from real-time dynamics. In this talk, I will first provide an overview of these developments, and then discuss how the Heisenberg limit, the fundamental precision limit imposed by quantum mechanics, can be reached for this task. I will demonstrate how the Heisenberg limit requires techniques that are fundamentally different from previous ones, and the important roles played by quantum control and thermalization. I will also discuss open problems that are crucial to making these algorithms implementable on current devices.
IQC Student Seminar Featuring Benjamin MacLellan
Variational methods for quantum sensing
Quantum-Nano Centre, 200 University Ave West, Room QNC 1201 Waterloo, ON CA N2L 3G1
The precise estimation of unknown physical quantities is foundational across science and technology. Excitingly, by harnessing carefully-prepared quantum correlations, we can design and implement sensing protocols that surpass the intrinsic precision limits imposed on classical approaches. Applications of quantum sensing are myriad, including gravitational wave detection, imaging and microscopy, geoscience, and atomic clocks, among others.
However, current and near-term quantum devices have limitations that make it challenging to capture this quantum advantage for sensing technologies, including noise processes, hardware constraints, and finite sampling rates. Further, these non-idealities can propagate and accumulate through a sensing protocol, degrading the overall performance and requiring one to study protocols in their entirety.
In recent work [1], we develop an end-to-end variational framework for quantum sensing protocols. Using parameterized quantum circuits and neural networks as adaptive ansätze of the sensing dynamics and classical estimation, respectively, we study and design variational sensing protocols under realistic and hardware-relevant constraints. This seminar will review the fundamentals of quantum metrology, cover common sensing applications and protocols, introduce and benchmark our end-to-end variational approach, and conclude with perspectives on future research.
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.02394
Open Quantum Computing, One Atom at a Time
Rajibul Islam
Faculty, Institute for Quantum Computing
Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo
Co-founder, Open Quantum Design
Quantum-Nano Centre, 200 University Ave West, Room QNC 0101 Waterloo, ON CA N2L 3G1
Quantum computing promises to advance our computational abilities significantly in many high-impact research areas. In this period of rapid development, the experimental capabilities needed to build quantum computing devices and prototypes are highly specialized and often difficult to access. In this public talk, we'll discuss how to build quantum computing devices one atom a time using the ion-trap approach. We'll show how we build quantum bits out of individually isolated atoms, explore how we use them to simulate other complex systems, and showcase how we're building open-access hardware to advance research in this exciting field.