Department of Physics
Research, teaching and outreach in Physics at UW–Madison

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Wisconsin Quantum Institute
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Quantum simulation of degenerate plasmas
Date: Tuesday, September 23rd
Time: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Place: Room 2188, Mechanical Engineering Building
Speaker: Andrew Baczewski, Sandia National Lab
Abstract: Accurate and efficient simulations of dense plasmas in conditions that are difficult or impossible to create in a terrestrial lab are a promising application for quantum computers. I will start by trying to convince you of this with some motivational problems in astrophysics, planetary science, and inertial confinement fusion. Then I will describe some of the quantum algorithms that we believe will be able to help solve these problems. It turns out that we expect the resource requirements for implementing these algorithms on instances beyond the reach of classical HPC to be pretty daunting - thousands of logical qubits capable of surviving billions (if not trillions) of logical operations without failure. So I also hope to convince you that building quantum computers to this spec is at least plausible, and perhaps even a good idea.

This seminar is sponsored by the Grainger Institute for Engineering in support of the seed grant “Quantum Information Science for Fusion Energy”

Host: Matthew Otten
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