Events at Physics |
Events on Thursday, December 10th, 2015
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Design and modeling of superconducting hardware for quantum computation and simulation
- Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am
- Place: Chamberlin 5310
- Speaker: Jens Koch, Northwestern University
- Abstract: Despite extraordinary challenges, research worldwide has led to remarkable advances in the exquisite control of individual quantum systems. Today, microwave-controlled superconducting circuits represent one of the “hot” candidates for the quantum hardware needed in a future quantum computer. I will give a brief review of the history, summarize how quantum mechanics manifests in these circuits, and then present theory work on developing a next generation of superconducting qubits using superinductor circuit elements. The new devices may realize intrinsic error protection by employing energy-degenerate wave functions with disjoint support. I will end with an outlook on the use of superconducting qubits in photon-based quantum simulation.
- Host: Vavilov
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Effects of Radial Mixing on Galactic Disks
- Time: 3:45 pm - 5:00 am
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee at 3:30 PM, Talk at 3:45 PM
- Speaker: Carlos Vera-Ciro, UW Astronomy Department
- Abstract: I will talk about secular evolution in disk galaxies, in particular we will discuss the effects of radial migration on the overall structure of galactic disks. Over the past few years this mechanism has been argued to be a natural, intrinsically driven, way of explaining observations such as the existence of a thick disk or the bias in the distribution of metals at different galactocentric distances in the Milky Way. In this talk I will show results that confront some of these interpretations, in particular in casting some questions about the role of radial migration in the assembly of the galactic thick disk.