News:

Igor Jex from Czech Technical University in Prague will be visiting Heriot-Watt 5-9 Feb and Tamas Kiss from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, will be visiting 5-13 Feb. If you wish to interact with them, you are very welcome to visit us.

Older News:

Our seventh meeting was held at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews on Wednesday 27th January 2010. Details of the meeting can be found here.

Talk: Why physicists and computer scientists should remain partners
Dr Elham Kashefi
Wednesday 20th January 2010, 4pm
Room 4.31/4.33, Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh
Abstract: Viewing quantum systems through the lens of their computational capabilities has the potential to provide important new insights into these systems. "What makes quantum systems non-classical?" Quantum Computing approaches this from the new perspective of how quantum effects can enhance information processing and communication. This is based upon two main ways in which quantum systems exhibit non-classicality: the apparent (exponential) complexity of simulating quantum systems classically, and non-local behaviour due to entanglement. Which leads to another fundamental question in physics: "If computing predictions for Quantum Mechanics requires exponential resources, is Quantum Mechanics a falsifiable theory?" I will briefly overview how a computational thinking has contributed towards these directions highlighting many remaining exciting open questions of the field.

Talk by Dr Ernesto Galvao (IF-UFF, Rio de Janeiro)
Wednesdays 13 Jan 2010 at 14:00 in room 4.31 of the Informatics Forum
Abstract: Physical experiments generate tables of probabilities describing relative frequencies of outcomes. Harrigan et al. [1] proposed a formalism to create simple models that explain any such data set in terms of positive, normalized probability distributions over a certain number of variables (called ontic states), using indicator functions to describe measurements. I will review this formalism with some simple examples, and discuss strategies that decrease the number of ontic states to obtain models that are as simple as possible. As an application, I will describe models for informationally complete measurements on the simplest quantum systems having just two and three distinguishable states [2]. These models were obtained using a high-dimensional computational geometry algorithm [3].
References:
[1] N. Harrigan, T. Rudolph, S. Aaronson, E-print arXiv:0709.1149v2 [quant-ph] (2007).
[2] E. F. Galvao, Phys. Rev. A 80, 022106 (2009) [3] C. B. Barber, D. P. Dobkin, H.T. Huhdanpaa, ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software 22 (4), 469 (1996). See http://www.qhull.org

The latest QUISCO meeting was held on Monday 16th November 2009 at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. Details here.

Our seventh QUISCO Meeting was at the University of Strathclyde on the 5th October, details. Our speakers were Dr S. G. Schirmer (Cambridge), Dr G. Juzeliunus (Vilnius), and Dr S. J. Gay (Glasgow).

As part of the Carnegie Quantum Coherence programme, Prof John Shumway spent 10 days at Heriot Watt and gave a Seminar and three graduate lectures on "Path integral studies of quantized conductance and Luttinger liquid behaviour in GaAs nanostructures" on the 7th, 10th, 12th and 14th August 2009 at 1415-1515, available via the SUPA video conferencing rooms.

Professor Alain Tapp from the University of Montreal visited Edinburgh University from the 8th to the 14th July 2009. He presented a talk on Monday, July 13 at the School of Informatics University of Edinburgh, on "communication complexity of measuring entanglement".

The latest QUISCO meeting was held at Heriot-Watt University on Tuesday 23rd June 2009. Details here.

The latest QUISCO Meeting was at Glasgow University on the 1st April 2009.

We welcome the addition of Dr Shashank Virmani to QUISCO. Dr Virmani joins the Physics Department of Strathclyde University having previously been at Hertfordshire University. His main interests are measurement, fault tolerance, and entanglement.

Our third one-day meeting was on the 24th October 2008 at the University of St Andrews. The speakers were be Prof. Barry Sanders (Calgary), Dr. Yuan Feng (Tsinghua) , and Prof. John Rarity (Bristol). There were discussion panels and poster sessions. The talks were held in the Nisbet Room, David Russell Apartments, Buchanan Gardens, University of St Andrews, KY16 9LY. Attendance was free. Details.

Our second one-day meeting was on the 13th June 2008 at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Prof. Mark Hillery (CUNY) gave the keynote address which was on the topic of Quantum Machines. Details. Poster

Our inaugural meeting was on Thursday 27th March 2008 in Edinburgh. Our main speakers were Prof. Steve Barnett FRS (Strathclyde) and Prof. Samson Abramsky FRS (Oxford). Details: Programme. Photos from the meeting can be found here. Highlights only.