Quantum Annealing and Computation

Event Date:
2019-11-13T19:30:00
2019-11-13T21:00:00
Event Location:
Chem B250
2036 Main Mall, UBC Vancouver
Speaker:
Thomas F. Rosenbaum
Caltech
Intended Audience:
Public
Local Contact:

Swarn Rai

swarn.rai@ubc.ca

604-822-1383

Event Information:

Why climb mountains when you can tunnel through them? Harnessing quantum tunneling holds great promise to speed up solutions to optimization problems, ranging from design of circuit boards to protein folding. When computers optimize, they are doing the analog of the physical process of annealing. I will discuss experiments on disordered magnets that quantitatively compare quantum and classical annealing, and demonstrate quantum speedup for reasons that can be understood at a microscopic level. This type of computation follows from Richard Feynman's concept of a quantum computer, and underlies the power of D-Wave machines. Finally, I will discuss the possibility of programmability for spins in disordered magnetic systems, showing recent results from our Lab on quantum spin liquids.

Add to Calendar 2019-11-13T19:30:00 2019-11-13T21:00:00 Quantum Annealing and Computation Event Information: Why climb mountains when you can tunnel through them? Harnessing quantum tunneling holds great promise to speed up solutions to optimization problems, ranging from design of circuit boards to protein folding. When computers optimize, they are doing the analog of the physical process of annealing. I will discuss experiments on disordered magnets that quantitatively compare quantum and classical annealing, and demonstrate quantum speedup for reasons that can be understood at a microscopic level. This type of computation follows from Richard Feynman's concept of a quantum computer, and underlies the power of D-Wave machines. Finally, I will discuss the possibility of programmability for spins in disordered magnetic systems, showing recent results from our Lab on quantum spin liquids. Event Location: Chem B250 2036 Main Mall, UBC Vancouver