Scott Aaronson's mini-course "Complexity theory and quantum optics"
Between Dec. 16th and Dec. 20th, 2013, Scott Aaronson (MIT) delivered a 5-lecture mini-course at the Physics Institute of Universidade Federal Fluminense. This was part of an academic visit to our Quantum Optics and Quantum Information group. The visit was organized by Ernesto Galvão and Thiago de Oliveira, and Ernesto and Fernando de Melo took some notes about the course, which are available below. We'd like to thank Scott for a wonderful course, and all those who attended.
Course title: Complexity theory and quantum optics
Speaker: Scott Aaronson (MIT)
Summary:
This mini-course will start with the fundamentals of classical and quantum computational complexity theory. It will then progress to an exciting area where computational complexity is now interacting with quantum information science and even experimental quantum optics:
namely, the quest to understand the computational power of beamsplitter networks, and to build a device capable of solving the so-called BosonSampling problem exponentially faster than a classical computer.
Topics to be addressed:
- P versus NP, the Extended Church-Turing Thesis, and Quantum Mechanics.
- Quantum Computing, Counting, Sampling, and Postselection.
- BosonSampling, the Permanent, the KLM Scheme, and the AA Approximate Hardness Result.
- Physical Implementation Issues, Classical Verification of BosonSampling Devices.
- BQP versus the polynomial hierarchy, linear-optical proof that the permanent is #P-hard.
Click here for a poster about the course.
Informal notes taken by Ernesto and Fernando:
Lecture 1: The Extended Church-Turing Thesis.
Lecture 2: Classical and Quantum Complexity Theory.
Lecture 3: Linear Optics and Exact BosonSampling.
Lecture 4: KLM, Post-selection and Approximate BosonSampling.
Lecture 5: Scalability and Verification of BosonSampling Devices.