Theoretical Chemistry Seminar: Daniel A. Lidar, Professor of Chemistry, University of Southern California

Location: SCL 110

 

Join Yale Chemistry for a Theoretical Chemistry Seminar with Daniel A. Lidar, Viterbi Professorship in Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chemistry, and Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern California.

 

Daniel Lidar’s main research interest is quantum information processing, where he works on quantum control, quantum error correction, the theory of open quantum systems, quantum algorithms, and theoretical as well as experimental adiabatic quantum computation.   

 

Quantum information processing holds great promise, yet large-scale, general-purpose, universal quantum computers capable of solving hard problems are not yet available despite nearly 25 years of rapidly intensifying worldwide effort and large investments. However, special-purpose quantum information processors, such as the quantum simulators originally envisioned by Feynman, now appear to be within reach. Another type of currently operational special-purpose quantum information processor is a quantum annealer, originally designed to speed up the solution to classical optimization problems. “Quantum supremacy” has meanwhile been identified as an intermediate target allowing the current generation of quantum computers to demonstrate superiority against classical computers. After a brief introduction to “what is quantum computing”, Prof. Lidar will review these developments and their broader impacts, with an eye toward the long-term prospects of quantum computers. Time permitting, he will briefly discuss our recent result demonstrating the first example of a demonstration of an algorithmic quantum speedup (arXiv:2207.07647).