Ph219/CS219
Quantum Computation
Fall 2021

Course description: Ph/CS 219A is the first term in a three-term course on quantum computation and quantum information science. Topics covered in 219A include density operators, quantum operations, quantum entanglement, quantum circuits, and quantum algorithms. Topics to be covered in Ph/CS 219B and 219C include quantum error correction, fault-tolerant quantum computing, quantum Shannon theory, and some special topics.

Course website: Here

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

Teaching assistants:

Kyle Gulshen, email: kgulshen(at)caltech(dot)edu
Tian Wang, email: twang3(at)caltech(dot)edu
Office hours: To be announced.
Students may also request meetings with TAs at other times. 

 

Canvas:
We will be using the Canvas Learning Management System. You can login to Canvas using your Caltech IMSS credentials.

Class meetings: Monday and Wednesday 2:30 – 3:55 pm in East Bridge 201 (Feynman Lecture Hall), starting on September 27. Lectures will be recorded using the Echo360 system in the lecture hall. Video files will be available in Canvas at the Echo360 link.

Homework assignments and grading: The course is graded pass-fail. Homework will be submitted, and graded homework will be returned, using Canvas.

You may receive partial credit if you describe a thoughtful approach to the problem, even if you are unable to solve it completely.

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, The Theory of Quantum Information by Watrous, and Quantum Information Theory by Wilde.

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

Material from Fall 2020:
Lectures from last fall were recorded and are posted on YouTube.

Here are slides from last fall. This year’s material will be broadly similar, but we expect to devote more time to quantum algorithms.

Lecture 1 (2020): Introduction (slides)
Lecture 2 (2020): Density operators (slides)
Lecture 3 (2020): Convexity, HJW theorem, generalized measurements (slides)
Lecture 4 (2020): Quantum channels, complete positivity, channel state duality (slides)
Lecture 5 (2020): Qubit channels, master equation (slides)
Lecture 6 (2020): Bell inequalities, CHSH game (slides)
Lecture 7 (2020): Bell polytope and its dual, quantum vs classical models (slides)
Lecture 8 (2020): Superdense coding and quantum teleportation (slides)
Lecture 9 (2020): Circuit complexity, P and NP, NP-completeness (slides)
Lecture 10 (2020): BPP and MA, Reversible computing, BQP and QMA (slides)
Lecture 11 (2020): Quantum circuits, universal gates. (slides)
Lecture 12 (2020): Universal gates continued, Solovay-Kitaev theorem (slides)
Lecture 13 (2020): Black Box model, Deutsch-Jozsa problem, Simon’s problem (slides)
Lecture 14 (2020): Period finding (slides)
Lecture 15 (2020): Factoring, public key cryptography, phase estimation (slides)
Lecture 16 (2020): Quantum searching (slides)
Lecture 17 (2020): Quantum simulation (slides)
Lecture 18 (2020): Local Hamiltonian problem (slides)

Homework assignments: 
Problem Set 1. States and measurements, due Friday 15 October.
Problem Set 2. Channels and entanglement, due Friday 29 October.
Problem Set 3. Universal gates, due Friday 12 November.
Problem Set 4. Quantum algorithms, due Friday 3 December