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Title: The Many-Body Physics of ComputationRegister for the talk: https://bit.ly/PLjan2025
Abstract: Computation is built on the fundamental laws of physics. At its heart, computation is a dance of countless interacting particles — what physicists call a many-body system — whether the computation is done by classical bits in a chip or qubits in a quantum processor. In this lecture, I will explore how ideas from many-body physics have shaped the past, present, and future of computation: from the collective behavior of electrons in semiconductors, to the spin-glass theory breakthroughs, like Hopfield neural networks, which laid the foundation for artificial intelligence and machine learning, to the importance of topological phases in enabling robust error correction for quantum processors.
We are now at the cusp of a new quantum era. Advances in quantum engineering provide unprecedented control over many-body systems, opening up entirely new frontiers for exploring quantum matter. These quantum devices allow us, for the first time, to study non-equilibrium many-body quantum systems, where novel dynamical phases — like time crystals — emerge. They also enable the creation of tunable and coherent quantum networks, leading to new phases in non-Euclidean geometries — such as topological quantum spin glasses. Beyond advancing our understanding of quantum matter, these developments are inspiring innovative paradigms for error correction, including Floquet codes and LDPC expander codes, which could transform the landscape of quantum computation.
Together, these developments reveal the profound connections between physics, information, and computation, paving the way for advances that will define the next 100 years of quantum mechanics.
About the Speaker: Vedika Khemani is an Associate Professor of physics at Stanford University. She is a theoretical physicist who works at the interface of quantum information and condensed matter physics. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2016, and was a Junior Fellow at Harvard from 2016-19. Khemani has received the Infosys Prize, the Breakthrough New Horizons in Physics Prize and the McMillan Award for her work on non-equilibrium quantum dynamics.
Webpage: https://www.icts.res.in/lectures/PLJan2025
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Survey No. 151, Shivakote, Hesaraghatta Hobli,T Dasarahalli, Bangalore, India
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