One-Way Quantum Computing in the Optical Frequency Comb

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This award, "One-way quantum computing in the optical frequency comb," supports the Quantum Fields and Quantum Information (QFQI) group in the Physics Department of the University of Virginia (UVa). Quantum computing (QC) is a fascinating endeavor whose most important promise is the exponential speedup of particular mathematical problems such as quantum system simulation and integer factoring, the latter being key to breaking cyber encryption. The physical challenges posed to the experimental implementation of QC are daunting and can be summarized by the requirement of exquisitely controlling thousands of single quantum systems (e.g. atoms) at the individual level. Because light is easy to control efficiently, as opposed to atoms, this research project is based on a novel proposal for a quantum computer, by the PI and his collaborators, using laser-like beams of light at different frequencies. A large amount of prior theoretical results has shown that this proposal offers exciting perspectives, in particular a spectacular increase of the size of prototype quantum computers.Broader impacts of the proposed work comprise an active research contribution to the UVa Physics graduate and undergraduate programs, in the form of the continuous advising of 3 Ph.D. students per year and 2 undergraduate students per summer (typically supported by NSF REU supplements to the grant). Also stemming from this research, departmental seminars have been given several times a year by different QFQI members and an advanced graduate course "Quantum Optics and Quantum Information" (Phys 888) is now taught by the PI at UVa on a regular basis. On the interdisciplinary front, this research is spawning collaborative efforts between the QFQI group and Prof. Arthur Lichtenberger, director of the UVa Microfabrication Laboratory at the UVa School of Engineering, in particular for microphotolithography applied to the fabrication of photonic materials. Last but not least, there exists the potential for this research to usher in fundamental tests of quantum mechanics by exploring large-scale quantum behavior in a regime where theoretical predictions are untested and even difficult to make. This would therefore represent a scientific endeavor on a broader scale than the field of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics.