Talk on Quantum Information by Caltech’s PhD student.

Title: The Kitaev Chain — a “topological” quantum information encoder

Speaker: Nandagopal Manoj, CalTech

Abstract: Quantum information is fickle unlike classical information, and one needs to devise smart ways to store quantum information such that it is resistant to noise. I will talk about the route being pursued by Microsoft, who is on a quest to build a topological quantum computer. It is based on the Kitaev chain — a simple toy model that realizes a topological phase of matter, and the goal of this talk is to reveal beautiful connections between topological phases of matter and the problem of quantum information storage using this example.

Tl;dr if you have heard the word “Majorana” in the quantum computing context and want to know what it means, this talk might be a good introduction.

Prerequisites: Second quantization (non relativistic) language for fermions, even better if you can write down the Hamiltonian for a 1d tight binding model in terms of electron creation and annihilation operators. I will review this but it’s better if you can revise it beforehand. You don’t need to know anything about quantum computing or topological phases of matter.

Date: 21st August, 2023 (today)

Time: 6-7:30 P.M

Venue: G-21, OPB

See you all there! Do adjust your schedule and try to attend this talk!