Physics Colloquium

3:30–4:30 pm Maria Goeppert-Mayer Lecture Hall

Scalable Quantum science and neutral atom arrays

Jake Covey, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Quantum science utilizes many-particle entanglement for computation, simulation, and sensing. For example, quantum simulators may provide insight into correlated materials, quantum chemistry, and nuclear physics, and quantum sensors can probe gravitational redshift at the millimeter level. Although it is believed that certain computations and simulations can be performed on quantum hardware at a scale well beyond what is possible on the largest supercomputers, there have been limited demonstrations of this quantum advantage to date. The challenge falls into two categories: First, we must create and control a quantum system that is sufficiently large to perform useful tasks. Second, we must use quantum resources as efficiently as possible.

I will present our efforts to address both the scalability and resource efficiency challenges of the neutral atom platform. I will describe our vision for distributed quantum processors in which many modules can be connected via two complementary approaches. I will highlight how distributed architectures can naturally be leveraged for simulating quantum chemistry and sensing the curvature of spacetime. To improve resource efficiency, I will illustrate the unique opportunities of two species that offer helium-like level structure and a spin-1/2 nucleus: ytterbium-171 and helium-3. We will exploit these features to study interactive quantum circuits, quark scattering in 1+1D, and quantum processors with fermionic statistics built in at the hardware level.

Event Type

Colloquia and Lectures

Oct 31