Victor V. Albert
@vva.bsky.social
📤 703
📥 356
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Theoretical physicist @NIST, QuICS Fellow, Zookeeper
@eczoo.bsky.social
. Views my own.
pinned post!
"For quantum computers to get significant speed-up, they need to take advantage of special structure. They do not offer significant speed-up for unstructured problems, so we do not expect to be able to just throw them at anything." Andrew Childs
arxiv.org/pdf/2408.16175
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https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.16175
3 months ago
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Every time I interact with Michel, he has some deep insight that I understand only years later. Maybe it is not completely fleshed out technically but it is always on point. It reminded me of other winners in the past. Well deserved!
add a skeleton here at some point
2 days ago
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A new proposal imposes significant restrictions on F-1 and J-1 visas, which would sharply curtail foreign talent flow to US grad schools. Both UMD Physics and umiacs are urging faculty to comment, so please consider. Comment period expires Sept 29.
www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...
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Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media
Unlike most nonimmigrant classifications, which are admitted for a fixed time period, aliens in the F (academic student), J (exchange visitor), and most I (representatives of foreign information media...
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/28/2025-16554/establishing-a-fixed-time-period-of-admission-and-an-extension-of-stay-procedure-for-nonimmigrant
13 days ago
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reposted by
Victor V. Albert
20 days ago
This is interesting and surprising: some Clifford gates cannot be implemented arbitrarily well on arbitrarily good approximate GKP states with Gaussian operations! Nice work by Brenner, Diaz and Koenig
arxiv.org/abs/2509.14658
Cat qubits (and generalizations) for the win, I guess ;-)
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Composable logical gate error in approximate quantum error correction: reexamining gate implementations in Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill codes
Quantifying the accuracy of logical gates is paramount in approximate error correction, where perfect implementations are often unachievable with the available set of physical operations. To this end,...
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.14658
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David Gross (Cologne) talks about SDP based quantum algorithms. Take home: hidden constants matter. Even if there is an asymptotic speedup in your favorite use case, it may still not be in the parameter regime that is relevant to the problem size you're interested in.
29 days ago
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reposted by
Victor V. Albert
Bob Coecke
about 1 month ago
Nobel Prize Laureate Roger Penrose, Yvette Fuentes, and myself, request your help in order to save an archive of incredible scientific and historical value. Please raise awareness by *sharing*, or *contribute*:
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-penr...
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Roger Penrose & Friends Appeal for Unique Archive
To digitise and restore the worlds largest collection of audio and visual recordings within the scientific community, spanning over 50 years
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-penrose-asks-support-for-the-archive-trust
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I had another fun opportunity to talk about our quantum formulation of the space of molecular orientations at Sorbonne University. Great workshop! Organized by Ugo Boscain, Christiane Koch, Mario Sigalotti, and Dominique Sugny.
zenodo.org/records/1705...
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Quantum theory of molecular orientation
https://zenodo.org/records/17058457
about 1 month ago
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@ox.ac.uk
debate by Simon Benjamin & Bálint Koczor, host
@mariaviolaris.bsky.social
. Motion: "quantum computers will have a greater impact on our lives than conventional ones." Terry Rudolph, Nathan Wiebe, Elham Kashefi vs
@jenseisert.bsky.social
,
@graemesmith.bsky.social
, me. Motion defeated 94-72.
about 1 month ago
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"Every American taxpayer is a silent shareholder in that success. If we walk away now, we lose not just future breakthroughs but also what we have already earned."
thehill.com/opinion/tech...
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Congress wants to cut the smartest investment taxpayers ever made
Virtually every smartphone on the planet runs on a chip paid for by American taxpayers — a chip that I helped invent. Now Congress is moving to cut funding for the National Science Foundation that …
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5439205-congress-wants-to-cut-the-smartest-investment-taxpayers-ever-made/
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Victor V. Albert
Error Correction Zoo
3 months ago
We are now at 999 codes. What should be our 1000th? If we pick yours, we will feature you in a post about the code. Comment, reply, message, and spread the word.
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reposted by
Victor V. Albert
John Watrous
3 months ago
After 3 1/2 years of work my course on quantum computing is finally finished — the "Director's Cut" of Understanding Quantum Information and Computation is now available.
arxiv.org/abs/2507.11536
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Understanding Quantum Information and Computation
This is a course on the theory of quantum computing. It consists of 16 lessons, each with a video and written component, covering the basics of quantum information, quantum algorithms (including query...
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11536
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"For quantum computers to get significant speed-up, they need to take advantage of special structure. They do not offer significant speed-up for unstructured problems, so we do not expect to be able to just throw them at anything." Andrew Childs
arxiv.org/pdf/2408.16175
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https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.16175
3 months ago
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From Barbara Terhal: On July 17-18 a small symposium "Dreams of Quantum" will be held in honor of David DiVincenzo's work and retirement at RWTH Aachen. The event can be attended by all via a Zoom link.
www.quantuminfo.physik.rwth-aachen.de/cms/~bmmwed
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Symposium | Institut fĂĽr Quanteninformation | RWTH Aachen University | DE
July 17-18, 2025 Ford Saal, Super C RWTH Aachen University
https://www.quantuminfo.physik.rwth-aachen.de/cms/~bmmwed
3 months ago
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"We're likely to experience a DeepSeek moment in quantum."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqPw...
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Preparing for the Quantum Age: When Cryptography Breaks
YouTube video by GOP Oversight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqPwXo9-esE
3 months ago
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Lots of good Lie group stuff in this post by
@dwierichs.bsky.social
, as it related to circuit compilation:
pennylane.ai/qml/demos/tu...
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The KAK decomposition | PennyLane Demos
Learn about the KAK decomposition and how it powers circuit decompositions.
https://pennylane.ai/qml/demos/tutorial_kak_decomposition
3 months ago
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"for U.S. developed nanotechnology to compete in the current era, the United States must rethink the entirety of its ... framework, within which nanotechnology knowledge is created, innovation is protected, and products are commercialized by industry."
nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/2572...
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A Quadrennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative: Nanoscience, Applications, and Commercialization
Read online, download a free PDF, or order a copy in print or as an eBook.
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25729/a-quadrennial-review-of-the-national-nanotechnology-initiative-nanoscience-applications
4 months ago
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The integer eigenvalues of angular momentum in a 2D space with periodic boundary conditions are scaled by the radius (for sufficiently large radii). Turns out there is a continuum of angular momenta!
arxiv.org/abs/2506.03254
4 months ago
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reposted by
Victor V. Albert
Frank Verstraete
4 months ago
Happy to see our book "Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics" published in English
www.panmacmillan.com/authors/fran...
. Unlike other popular science books, we explain quantum and its applications in the way working physicists use and understand them, without shying away from the many-body problem.
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"AIP projects a 13% drop in first-year enrollment in fall 2025 compared with fall 2024. ... One in six of the responding chairs reported that at least one faculty member in the department has had their federal grant funding reduced or canceled."
digital.physicstoday.org/physicstoday...
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Physics Today - Physics, astronomy graduate admissions in the US expected to shrink amid funding uncertainty
The predicted decrease is larger than pandemic-era disruptions, according to a survey of university departments.
https://digital.physicstoday.org/physicstoday/library/item/june_2025/4276704
4 months ago
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"Skinny" US budget out today w/ many cuts to specific programs + NSF now at 15% overhead. Silver lining: "[ NSF] Funding for Artificial Intelligence and quantum information sciences research is maintained at current levels."
add a skeleton here at some point
5 months ago
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Absolutely maximal entangled states are maximally entangled along any bipartition. We extend this to continuous variables and show this property is generic among infinitely squeezed states. In contrast, it doesn't exist for states on more than six qubits.
arxiv.org/abs/2503.15698
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Most continuous-variable cluster states are too entangled to be useless
We define absolutely maximal entanglement (AME) in continuous-variable (CV) systems and show that, in stark contrast to qudit systems, this entanglement is generic among infinitely squeezed Gaussian s...
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.15698
7 months ago
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Here are slides for my
@qip2025.bsky.social
tutorial on quantum error correction.
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
8 months ago
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Quantum community should be aware that this kind of misleading advertising is happening.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGXT...
8 months ago
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ArXiv quant-ph needs to be split up! Paul Ginsparg lists Daniel Gottesman's proposed subcategories at his
@aspenphysics.bsky.social
talk. He is looking for feedback: please reply, dm, or email.
8 months ago
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reposted by
Victor V. Albert
QIP 2025 Conference
8 months ago
Our third tutorial of QIP 2025 is “Quantum error correction: a guided tour" by Victor Albert (
@vva.bsky.social
) from NIST and QuICS, who will gently introduce and visit increasingly important corners of the mega-field of QEC (Sun Feb 23, 9am-12:30pm, Room 302ABC). Overview below:
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Slides from my talk
@aspenphysics.bsky.social
AI+Quantum conference overviewing use cases of AI in quantum error correction + semantic literature search.
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
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AI + Quantum Coding
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14852012
8 months ago
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Adam Brown at his
@aspenphysics.bsky.social
talk updates us on the dramatic improvements in LLM performance on technical exams and makes a compelling case that this improvement will continue for another five years. Not one but many Einsteins coming up!
8 months ago
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NSF is back on!
new.nsf.gov/executive-or...
add a skeleton here at some point
8 months ago
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OTOH, not so good news from @NSF: "all review panels, new awards and all payments of funds under open awards will be paused as the agency conducts the required reviews and analysis"
new.nsf.gov/executive-or...
add a skeleton here at some point
8 months ago
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Re federal funding freeze from UMD: "The university has not received overarching stop-work orders or suspension notices. Work on grants and cooperative agreements should continue ... unless the Office of Research Administration (ORA) has provided other guidance."
8 months ago
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Happy 10th anniversary QuICS!
9 months ago
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2025 REU-CAAR is out!
@domwilliamson.bsky.social
and I are looking for an REU summer student on bivariate bicycle codes. Yifan Hong and Yu-Xin Wang have a nice project on QLDPC codes. Shubham Jain is looking to find record breaking qutrit codes.
www.cs.umd.edu/projects/reu...
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Combinatorics and Algorithms for Real Problems
Prerequisites Knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms. Programming skills in C
https://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/reucaar/projects25TEST.html
9 months ago
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Congrats to Justyna Zwolak, Norm Yao, Zohreh Davoudi, Vedika Khemani, Douglas Stanford, Adam Kaufman, Stephen Eckel, Barry Bradlyn, Amir Safavi-Naeini, Mary Wootters, and the rest of the PECASE winners!
www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-up...
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President Biden Honors Nearly 400 Federally Funded Early-Career Scientists | OSTP | The White House
Today, President Biden awarded nearly 400 scientists and engineers the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outst...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2025/01/14/president-biden-honors-nearly-400-federally-funded-early-career-scientists/
9 months ago
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"We do not yet have proven exponential quantum speedups for end-to-end applications in machine learning, optimization, quantum chemistry, or materials science that guarantee substantial commercial and financial value."
arxiv.org/pdf/2501.05694
9 months ago
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Have SIC-POVMs finally been found?
@sflammia.bsky.social
arxiv.org/abs/2501.03970
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A Constructive Approach to Zauner's Conjecture via the Stark Conjectures
We propose a construction of $d^2$ complex equiangular lines in $\mathbb{C}^d$, also known as SICPOVMs, which were conjectured by Zauner to exist for all d. The construction gives a putatively complet...
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03970
9 months ago
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A "modern perspective" "from the archives" circa 2003.
digital.physicstoday.org/physicstoday...
9 months ago
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x.com/victorvalber...
Xmas afternoon quantum catchup
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x.com
https://x.com/victorvalbert/status/1872002552453361812
10 months ago
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Here are slides from my Simons Center for Geometry and Physics talk on tiger codes --- a new paradigm for intrinsically multi-mode many-body CV physics.
drive.google.com/file/d/1PKjp...
10 months ago
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Second
@seanski44.bsky.social
Computerphile video is out; more up to date stuff this time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqHVs5zhD5g
over 2 years ago
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Here is a video I did with computerphile that explains four basic principles of quantum mechanics -- discreteness, superposition, uncertainty, entanglement -- in order of complexity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5A_oupZOCE
over 2 years ago
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Hello BlueSky, anyone quantum out here?
over 2 years ago
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