This reunion workshop is for long-term participants in the program "Quantum Algorithms, Complexity, and Fault Tolerance," held in the spring 2024 semester. It will provide an opportunity to meet old and new friends. Moreover, we hope that it will give everyone a chance to reflect on the progress made during the semester and since, and sketch which directions the field should go in the future. In an effort to keep things informal and to encourage open discussion, none of the activities will be recorded. Participation in the workshop is by invitation only. 

Sample Schedule (see schedule tab for more detail)

9:00-9:30 AM Check-in refreshments

9:30-10:00 AM Talk 1

10:30-11:00 AM AM Break

11:00-12:00 AM Talk 2

12:00-2:00 PM Lunch

2:00-3:00 PM Talk 3

3:00-3:30 PM PM Break

3:30-4:30 PM Talk 4

4:30-5:30 PM Reception (Day 1 only)

If you require special accommodation, please contact our access coordinator at simonsevents@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible.

Please note: the Simons Institute regularly captures photos and video of activity around the Institute for use in videos, publications, and promotional materials. 

Quantum Gibbs sampling is a family of quantum algorithms for simulating many-body physics in thermal equilibrium, which can be understood as the quantum analog of classical Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms. We plan to cover quantum algorithms for sampling Gibbs states, techniques for proving mixing times, and obstructions to fast mixing. The goal is to introduce the basic concepts and techniques to newcomers and build towards an open-ended discussion.

Please note: the Simons Institute regularly captures photos and video of activity around the Institute for use in videos, publications, and promotional materials. 

There has been a burst of recent progress on quantum error-correcting codes, across the physics, computer science, and math communities. This workshop will bring together researchers from all these communities to share recent progress and exchange ideas. Particular topics covered will include constructions of quantum LDPC codes and new algorithms for quantum codes. 

This is a joint workshop between the Error-Correcting Codes: Theory and Practice program and the Quantum Algorithms, Complexity, and Fault Tolerance program.

If you require special accommodation, please contact our access coordinator at simonsevents@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible.

This workshop will bring together researchers from academia and industry to study the capabilities of existing and upcoming quantum computers. Topics will include protocols for characterizing quantum noise, as well as tailoring fault-tolerance protocols to more concrete noise models. The other theme will be proofs of quantumness and other near-term algorithms suitable for such computers, as well as algorithms for scalable fault-tolerant quantum computers.

Please note: the Simons Institute regularly captures photos and video of activity around the Institute for use in videos, publications, and promotional materials. 

Stephen Jordan (Google)

In this talk I will describe Decoded Quantum Interferometry (DQI), a quantum algorithm for reducing classical optimization problems to classical decoding problems by exploiting structure in the Fourier spectrum of the objective function. (See: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08292.) For a regression problem called optimal polynomial intersection, which has been previously studied in the contexts of coding theory and cryptanalysis, DQI achieves an exponential quantum speedup over all classical algorithms we are aware of.

This reunion workshop is for long-term participants in the program "Quantum Algorithms, Complexity, and Fault Tolerance," held in the spring 2024 semester. It will provide an opportunity to meet old and new friends. Moreover, we hope that it will give everyone a chance to reflect on the progress made during the semester and since, and sketch which directions the field should go in the future. In an effort to keep things informal and to encourage open discussion, none of the activities will be recorded. Participation in the workshop is by invitation only. 

Sample Schedule (see schedule tab for more detail)

9:00-9:30 AM Check-in refreshments

9:30-10:00 AM Talk 1

10:30-11:00 AM AM Break

11:00-12:00 AM Talk 2

12:00-2:00 PM Lunch

2:00-3:00 PM Talk 3

3:00-3:30 PM PM Break

3:30-4:30 PM Talk 4

4:30-5:30 PM Reception (Day 1 only)

If you require special accommodation, please contact our access coordinator at simonsevents@berkeley.edu with as much advance notice as possible.

Please note: the Simons Institute regularly captures photos and video of activity around the Institute for use in videos, publications, and promotional materials. 

Recent developments in quantum algorithms, particularly the 2021 discovery of an apparent exponential quantum speedup for the SIS-infinity problem by filtering, and the 2024 discovery of an apparent exponential quantum speedup for the optimal polynomial intersection problem by decoded quantum interferometry, provide new motivation for the quantum decoding problem. Here, one is given a codeword from a classical error correcting code, which has been subjected to a coherent superposition of symbol-flip errors, and one wishes to recover the original codeword using an efficient quantum circuit. In this workshop we will survey the current state of the art in quantum decoding, present open problems in quantum decoding motivated by algorithmic applications, and then work on these problems together.

Please note: the Simons Institute regularly captures photos and video of activity around the Institute for use in videos, publications, and promotional materials. 

The complexity of ground states of local Hamiltonians is the quantum analog of the theory of NP-Completeness. It features the two most important open questions in quantum complexity theory: the quantum PCP conjecture and the Area Law for 2D gapped Hamiltonians. Recent progress on the first question has been a direct consequence of the discovery of good quantum LDPC codes, while progress on the second question has relied on fault-tolerant polynomials. In a very exciting development, ideas from quantum error correction and quantum complexity theory play an unexpected and deep role in current attempts to understand quantum gravity. These connections even suggest the possibility that quantum gravity could violate the quantum extended Church-Turing thesis. This workshop will bring together researchers from TCS, information and coding theory, mathematics, physics to share recent progress, exchange ideas and make progress on these questions.

Please note: the Simons Institute regularly captures photos and video of activity around the Institute for use in videos, publications, and promotional materials.