Ph219/CS219
Quantum Computation
2015-16

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Course description: This two-term course covers quantum information theory, quantum algorithms, and quantum error correction.

Class meetings: Monday and Wednesday 2:30-3:55 in 269 Lauritsen.

Note: No class on Wednesday January 27 (because of the Quantum Summit) or on Wednesday March 2.

Make-up Lectures: 7:00-8:25 in 269 Lauritsen on Tuesday January 19, Thursday January 28, Tuesday February 16.

 

Instructor:
John Preskill, 206 Annenberg, X-6691, email: preskill(at)theory(dot)caltech(dot)edu

Teaching assistant:

Nicole Yunger Halpern, 229 Annenberg, email: nicoleyh(at)caltech(dot)edu

Office hours: Tuesdays 7:10-8:40 pm, 106 Annenberg.

Lectures and references:
The primary reference for most of the lectures will be these lecture notes (JP). Other useful books are Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Nielsen and Chuang (NC), Classical and Quantum Computation by Kitaev, Shen, and Vyalyi (KSV), Quantum Computing Since Democritus by Aaronson, and Quantum Information Theory by Wilde.

Other recommended lecture notes: John Watrous, Umesh Vazirani, Andrew Childs, Scott Aaronson

Course outline for winter term:

Good references on quantum error correction are this review by Gottesman, and this review by Terhal. See also JP Chapter 7.
Lecture 1 (Jan 11): Quantum error-correcting codes
Lecture 2 (Jan 13): Classical linear codes, quantum CSS codes
Lecture 3 (Jan 19): Quantum stabilizer codes
Lecture 4 (Jan 20): Stabilizer codes continued
Lecture 5 (Jan 25): Existence of good codes, upper bounds on code rate.
Lecture 6 (Jan 28): Concatenated codes, toric code.

Handwritten lecture notes on toric code recovery, fault-tolerant recovery, fault-tolerant gates

Lectures 7-8 (Feb 1, 3): Fault-tolerant quantum memory and computation.
Lectures 9-10 (Feb 8, 10): Quantum accuracy threshold theorem.

For more details on information theory, see Wilde (also available in an arXiv version). See also JP Chapter 10.

Lectures 11-12 (Feb 16, 17): Shannon entropy and compression, Von Neumann entropy and quantum compression.
Lectures 13-14 (Feb 22, 24): Strong subadditivity, accessible information, noisy-channel coding.
Lectures 15-17 (Feb 29, Mar 7, 9): Capacities of quantum channels.

Homework assignments: 
All students taking the course for credit are required to do the homework. 
Logistical guidelines regarding homework.

Problem Set 1. Quantum error-correcting codes. Due Wed. 3 February 2014.
Problem Set 2. Fault-tolerant quantum computing. Due Wed. 24 February 2014.
Problem Set 3. Entropy and entanglement. Due Wed. 9 March 2014.