Physics & Astronomy Colloquium – Dr. Shruti Puri
About the event
The Department of Physics and Astronomy invites you to a colloquium featuring Dr. Shruti Puri, faculty candidate. Dr. Puri will present their talk, “Quantum Error Correction with Schrödinger Cats.”
Meet for refreshments before the lecture from 3:45 – 4:10 p.m. in the foyer on floor G above the lecture hall.
Abstract: We are currently in the midst of a second quantum revolution where the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics are being applied to develop computers for solving otherwise intractable problems. However, in order to gain computational advantage billions of quantum operations must be performed with ultrahigh degree of accuracy. As a result, active quantum error correction (QEC) is absolutely essential. Remarkably, with fault-tolerant QEC it is possible to solve a computational problem accurately by transforming a many-body quantum state with a sequence of faulty operations on imperfect quantum hardware. However, fault-tolerant protocols come at the cost of enormous overheads, pushing practical realization of useful quantum computers out of reach. In this talk I will present an elementary introduction to QEC. I will then introduce a new type of qubit called the Schrödinger cat qubit realized in a parametrically driven non-linear oscillator. The Schrödinger cat states are superpositions of two coherent states with opposite phases. I will show that the cat qubit realized by parametrically driving a non-linear oscillator has some in-built protection against errors. Finally, I will discuss how this protected cat-qubit can significantly reduce the overheads for fault-tolerant QEC.