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R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
Challenges in Quantum Computer Architecture
Date: Thursday, March 1st
Time: 10:00 am
Place: 5310 Chamberlin
Speaker: Ken Brown, Schools of Chemistry & Biochemistry; Computational Science & Engineering; and Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
Abstract: The development of a large-scale quantum computer faces two challenges: faulty hardware components and the inability to copy quantum information. Despite the no-cloning theorem, it is possible to use fault-tolerant quantum error correction techniques to generate arbitrarily reliable logical components. In the context of an algorithm, the inability to copy quantum information requires that a block of data that needs to interact with two other data blocks must be transported first from one block and then to the other. Although it is widely appreciated that the bulk of resources in a scalable quantum computers will be devoted to error correction, the significant cost of communication during the computation is only now being understood [1]. This can have a dramatic effect on the utility of a quantum computer as a simulator of other quantum systems [2].

I will discuss methods for estimating the communication cost on two distinct hardware layouts for ion trap quantum computation in the context of concatenated error correcting codes. In the first hardware layout, the ions are held in multiple zones and communications is performed by physically shuttling ions between zones [3]. The second hardware layout uses photons to create entangled ions in distant traps by the process of heralded entanglement [4]. These entangled ions are then used as teleportation channels to transfer information. I will compare possible architectures for arranging these systems on the logical level. Finally, I will briefly describe how these same architectural ideas can be applied in the setting of topological error correction.

[1] M.G. Whitney, N. Isailovic, Y. Patel and J. Kubiatowicz, A fault tolerant, area efficient architecture for Shor's factoring algorithm, Proc. of the 39th Annual Intl. Symp. on Computer Architecture ( ISCA), 383 (2009).

[2]C. R. Clark, T. S. Metodi, S. D. Gasster, and K. R. Brown, Resource requirements for fault-tolerant quantum simulation: the transverse Ising model ground state, Phys. Rev. A 79, 062314 (2009).

[3] D. Kielpinski, C. Monroe & D. J. Wineland, Architecture for a large-scale ion-trap quantum computer, Nature 417, 709 (2002).

[4] L.-M. Duan and C. Monroe, Quantum networks with trapped ions ,Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 1209 (2010).


Host: Saffman
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