Layla Hormozi

Braid topologies for quantum computation.

In topological quantum computation, quantum information is stored in states which are intrinsically protected from decoherence, and quantum gates are carried out by dragging particlelike excitations (quasiparticles) around one another in two space dimensions. The resulting quasiparticle trajectories define world lines in three-dimensional space-time, and the corresponding quantum gates depend only on the topology of the braids formed by these world lines. We show how to find braids that yield a universal set of quantum gates for qubits encoded using a specific kind of quasiparticle which is particularly promising for experimental realization.

Fractional quantum Hall effect of lattice bosons near commensurate flux.

We study interacting bosons on a lattice in a magnetic field. When the number of flux quanta per plaquette is close to a rational fraction, the low-energy physics is mapped to a multispecies continuum model: bosons in the lowest Landau level where each boson is given an internal degree of freedom, or pseudospin. We find that the interaction potential between the bosons involves terms that do not conserve pseudospin, corresponding to umklapp processes, which in some cases can also be seen as BCS-type pairing terms. We argue that in experimentally realistic regimes for bosonic atoms in optical lattices with synthetic magnetic fields, these terms are crucial for determining the nature of allowed ground states. In particular, we show numerically that certain paired wave functions related to the Moore-Read Pfaffian state are stabilized by these terms, whereas certain other wave functions can be destabilized when umklapp processes become strong.

Nonstoquastic Hamiltonians and quantum annealing of an Ising spin glass

We study the role of Hamiltonian complexity in the performance of quantum annealers. We consider two general classes of annealing Hamiltonians: stoquastic ones, which can be simulated efficiently using the quantum Monte Carlo algorithm, and nonstoquastic ones, which cannot be treated efficiently. We implement the latter by adding antiferromagnetically coupled two-spin driver terms to the traditionally studied transverse-field Ising model, and compare their performance to that of similar stoquastic Hamiltonians with ferromagnetically coupled additional terms. We focus on a model of long-range Ising spin glass as our problem Hamiltonian and carry out the comparison between the annealers by numerically calculating their success probabilities in solving random instances of the problem Hamiltonian in systems of up to 17 spins. We find that, for a small percentage of mostly harder instances, nonstoquastic Hamiltonians greatly outperform their stoquastic counterparts and their superiority persists as the system size grows. We conjecture that the observed improved performance is closely related to the frustrated nature of nonstoquastic Hamiltonians.

Topological Quantum Computing with Read-Rezayi States

Read-Rezayi fractional quantum Hall states are among the prime candidates for realizing non-Abelian anyons which, in principle, can be used for topological quantum computation. We present a prescription for efficiently finding braids which can be used to carry out a universal set of quantum gates on encoded qubits based on anyons of the Read-Rezayi states with k>2, k not equal 4. This work extends previous results which only applied to the case k=3 (Fibonacci) and clarifies why, in that case, gate constructions are simpler than for a generic Read-Rezayi state.

Quantum Computing with Non-Abelian Quasiparticles

In topological quantum computation quantum information is stored in exotic states of matter which are intrinsically protected from decoherence, and quantum operations are carried out by dragging particle-like excitations (quasiparticles) around one another in two space dimensions. The resulting quasiparticle trajectories define world-lines in three dimensional space-time, and the corresponding quantum operations depend only on the topology of the braids formed by these world-lines. We describe recent work showing how to find braids which can be used to perform arbitrary quantum computations using a specific kind of quasiparticle (those described by the so-called Fibonacci anyon model) which are thought to exist in the experimentally observed ν = 12/5 fractional quantum Hall state.

Josephson-coupled Moore-Read states

eld theory approach, we develop an intuitive picture of this system as two coupled composite fermion superconductors. In this language, pair tunneling provides a Josephson coupling of the superconducting phases of the two layers, and gaps out the Goldstone mode associated with particle transport between the layers. In particular, this implies that quasiparticles are conned

BRAIDING AND ENTANGLEMENT IN NONABELIAN QUANTUM HALL STATES

Certain fractional quantum Hall states, including the experimentally observed ν = 5/2 state, and, possibly, the ν = 12/5 state, may have a sufficiently rich form of topological order (i.e. they may be nonabelian) to be useful for quantum information processing. For example, in some cases they may be used for topological quantum computation, an intrinsically fault tolerant form of quantum computation which is carried out by braiding the world lines of quasiparticle excitations in 2+1 dimensional space time. Here we briefly review the relevant properties of nonabelian quantum Hall states and discuss some of the methods we have found for finding specific braiding patterns which can be used to carry out universal quantum computation using them. Recent work on one-dimensional chains of interacting quasiparticles in nonabelian states is also reviewed.