Guidelines for term projects
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For the final month of the course you will be working on a term
project. Here is some information and guidelines for the project:
Structure:
Your project can be about any topic within quantum computation,
quantum information and the broader field of information-oriented
quantum physics. You choose a topic yourselves, but it must be
approved by the instructor. You should work together preferably in
groups of two.
Format:
The project consists of two parts:
(1) a written report (5-10 pages, typed)
(2) an oral presentation (20 minutes !!!).
In your report, you should also indicate which group member is primarily responsible
for which part of the report.
Suggested topics
The following are some suggestions on broad topics for term
projects. There are very few references on this page, but if you
look at the web page for for Spring 2005, you
can find an extensive list of references for some topics there just
below the lecture notes, although this list needs some cleaning (also,
the notation used in referencing journals may or may not be clear to
you, ask us if you need help to interpret it). You should also be able
to find plenty of material (perhaps even too much) for most of the
topics online just by googling. An alternative is to go straight to
the Los Alamos preprint archive (link on the class web page).
You can also ask us if you want us to
recommend some reading material. If you find some references that you
think are especially good, then let us know, and we can add it to the
webpage for future use.
- Physical realizations
- Nuclear spin qubits
- Realization of quantum teleportation
- Josephson junction qubits (superconductors)
- NMR-based quantum computing
- Quantum dot qubits
- Quantum computing with molecular magnets
- Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics (see e.g. this Caltech
webpage)
- Bose-Einstein condensates and quantum control
- Quantum computing in optical lattices
- Electrons on liquid helium as qubits
...and let us know if you find some exciting new ones!
- Adiabatic quantum algorithms
This is a paradigm for quantum calculations which is very different
from (although formally equivalent to) the circuit model we have been
using in class. Here are some papers exploring the subject (quant-ph/0001106, quant-ph/0206003, quant-ph/0405098).
- Kitaev's phase estimation algorithm This has a number of
applications, among others speeding up quantum calculations without
entanglement and significant speedup in solving differential
equations. Some references: quant-ph/0310038, quant-ph/0408137.
- Quantum Random Walks Many applications and also some
discussions of how to implement them experimentally.
- Quantum error-correcting codes
- Teleportation, more in-depth, use in error correction and other applications
- Quantum communication
- Quantum architectures, scalability
- Limits on quantum measurement
- "Interpreting" Quantum Mechanics
What is a measurement? What are the fundamental differences between
Quantum Mechanics and classical non-deterministic theories? Why should
quantum computers be more powerful than classical ones (or should
they?). Copenhagen interpretation, many-worlds interpretation and
consequences thereof if any. Lots of topics to explore here, but if
you do though, make sure you choose something that you can write
something more scientific than just an opinion piece on.
These are just suggestions, feel free to suggest others (although we
do reserve the right to approve or not approve your suggestion).