Modeling, Computation, Nonlinerarity, Randomness and Waves Seminar

Quantum error correction (QEC) is vital for the development of scalable and reliable quantum technologies, since each component of these systems is susceptible to noise. The roots of QEC lies in classical information and coding theory, but the mathematical setup for QEC is very different and gives rise to uniquely quantum phenomena. In this talk, we will begin by discussing the key ideas of classical error correcting codes (ECCs) and setup the correct intuition for QECCs. Then, we will review the postulates of quantum theory and then introduce QEC, drawing parallels with ECCs. Subsequently, we will look at uniquely quantum constraints that make it much more challenging to design and implement QEC techniques. Depending on time, we will look at applications of ECCs and QEC in quantum communications and networking. We will also discuss how the University of Arizona is playing a key role in these applications, and highlight opportunities for collaboration with mathematicians at UofA.

Biography:  Narayanan Rengaswamy is a postdoctoral research associate with Prof. Bane Vasic at the University of Arizona, where he is involved in the error correction aspects of the NSF funded Center for Quantum Networks (CQN) and DoE funded Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) center. He completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in May 2020 at Duke University, working under the supervision of Prof. Henry Pfister and Prof. Robert Calderbank. His dissertation (https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.06834) focused on developing systematic methods to construct fault-tolerant logical operations on stabilizer quantum error correcting codes, and on optimally decoding classical codes over the quantum pure-state channel that arises in free-space optical communications. Prior to this, he completed his M.S. in Electrical Engineering in December 2015 at Texas A&M University, where he worked with Prof. Henry Pfister on cyclic polar codes. In summer 2015, he was a research intern at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Stuttgart, Germany, where he analyzed the finite-length performance of spatially-coupled LDPC codes on the binary erasure channel, under the supervision of Dr. Laurent Schmalen and Dr. Vahid Aref. His general research interests are in classical and quantum information theory, coding theory, compressed sensing and statistical inference problems. He is passionate about discovering connections between the classical and quantum information processing worlds.  

More information about his work is available on his website (https://nrenga.github.io) and on Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qkAERWAAAAAJ&hl=en).

Zoom:  https://arizona.zoom.us/j/94534134312   Password:  “arizona” (all lower case)