Conference: ICMS: Topological Quantum Computing

几十年来，量子计算一直是一个主要的研究领域，来自学术界、工业界和政府等许多科学领域的研究人员共同致力于量子技术的发展。如果能够制造出强大的量子计算机，它将从根本上改变信息科学与技术的格局。虽然由于典型量子态的微妙性质造成的误差减缓了进展，但拓扑量子计算（TQC）是一种可以克服这一问题的方法。这是通过利用信息可以“打结”的材料，就像量子qupu一样，使它们对最常见的错误具有天然的鲁棒性。在相关的研究小组分别工作了几年之后，现在是时候把不同的物理学家和数学家聚集在一起，重新审视这个领域，探索拓扑量子计算的新平台。这项资助支持美国的研究人员参加将在英国举行的研讨会，以实现这一目标，促进美国、英国和世界其他国家的研究人员之间的新合作，并扩大初级研究人员和在这一领域历史上代表性不足的群体成员的参与。本次研讨会将汇集TQC及其周围不同领域的研究人员，旨在拓宽和深化这一学科，并着眼于加速可扩展技术的实现。随着目前的进步，可扩展容错的障碍是无法克服的——虽然可以设计支持数百个物理量子位的系统，但超越原理证明的应用需要数百万个量子位来实现强大的纠错。拓扑量子计算依赖于支持非阿贝尔任意子的物质的拓扑相的制备来执行固有的容错操作。由于通过任意子的拓扑特性在硬件级别纠正了错误，因此同时克服了可伸缩性问题。另一方面，尽管多年的努力，我们仍然没有确凿的证据证明非阿贝尔任意子的存在。我们将探索超越传统anyon社区的新方向，包括量子元胞自动机，分形，分类对称和三维运动群等相关主题。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Quantum computation has been a major area of research for several decades now, with researchers from many scientific fields across academia, industry and government working together towards the development of quantum technologies. If a powerful quantum computer can be built it will fundamentally transform the landscape of information science and technology. While errors due to the delicate nature of typical quantum states have mitigated progress, topological quantum computation (TQC) is an approach that could overcome this issue. This is by utilizing materials in which information can be "knotted," like a quantum quipu, making them naturally robust against the most common errors. After several years of the relevant research groups working separately, the time is right to bring together a diverse group of physicists and mathematicians with the goal of re-examining the field and exploring new platforms for topological quantum computation. This grant supports the participation of US-based researchers in a workshop to be held in the UK to achieve this goal, foster new collaborations between researchers in the US, the UK, and the rest of the world, and broaden the participation of junior researchers and members of groups historically under-represented in this area. This workshop will bring together researchers in a diversity of fields in and around TQC for the purpose of broadening and deepening the subject, with an eye towards accelerating the realization of scalable technology.The hurdle of scalable fault-tolerance is insurmountable with the current incremental progress -- while it is possible to engineer systems supporting hundreds of physical qubits, applications beyond mere proof of principle require millions of qubits to implement robust error correction. Topological quantum computation relies upon the preparation of topological phases of matter supporting non-abelian anyons to perform inherently fault-tolerant operations. As errors are corrected at the hardware level through the topological nature of anyons, the problem of scalability is simultaneously overcome. On the other hand, despite years of effort we still do not have unassailable confirmation that non-abelian anyons exist. We will explore new directions beyond the traditional anyon community, embracing relevant topics such as quantum cellular automata, fractons, categorical symmetries and motion groups in 3-dimensions. A website for this event is available at: https://www.icms.org.uk/TopologicalQuantumComputation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.