Speaker: Fausto Martelli, IBM Research

Date / Time: Thursday 11 April, 6pm – 7pm

Venue: School of Mathematics, University of Bristol (Room SM1)

The discovery of the Hydrogen bond can be dated back to the early 1920’s. This discovery opened the way to a new understanding of the Chemistry and Physics of materials. In the 1940’s Nobel Laureate chemist Linus Pauling observed that water, if it weren’t for the hydrogen bonds, should freeze at around -120 Celsius. As odd as Pauling’s conclusion may seem, it is one of the first scientific foot steps that, little by little, uncovered a profound truth: water hides many strange behaviors. Since then, scientists have discovered a plethora of anomalous behaviors in water that make it truly exceptional, and wildly unconventional. We now count more than 70 anomalies, i.e., behaviors that deviate from the theories taught in textbooks on Chemistry and Physics.

Without its peculiar behaviors, life on our planet would have never existed. For example, ice floats instead of sinking (as normally occurs in all other materials), and liquid water at 4 Celsius is denser than at other temperatures. As a result, the surface of water freezes during winter, while the bottom maintain a comfortable constant temperature of approximately 4 Celsius that allows life to advance. If water would have been a “normal” material, water would freeze from the bottom up, thereby killing all marine life.

In this talk, I will offer a journey on the history of scientific explorations that led to the discovery of many of the water anomalies. In doing so, I will present some of its most remarkable and unconventional behaviors—behaviors that directly affect our daily life without us even noticing it.

How to register

The talk is open to all University of Bristol staff and students as well as the general public. We ask that all attendees please register in advance of the event via Eventbrite.

Join us on Monday 18 February, 6pm, SM2 for the first of this terms Matrix talks, designed to show off bits of maths that you won’t see in lectures – no special knowledge required!

Title: Password hacking, the de Bruijn way – Dan Fretwell

Abstract: How does one brute force a password of length n? You try all the possibilities of course*.

But what if the machine lets you type until the correct password is entered? Then you can do much better…by using de Bruijn sequences**!

Intrigued? Then come along. There might even be magic***…

(* not recommended)

(** also not recommended, but is definitely better…honest)

(*** a poor attempt at, but probably worth coming for just in case I mess it up)

Title: The Circles of Apollonius – Nick Rome

Abstract: Over 2000 years ago, the Greek mathematician Apollonius of Perga described how given three touching circles you can construct two more that touch each of the original circles. This neat construction is still studied today leading to all sorts of interesting questions in geometry, fractals, group theory and number theory.

Title: Quantum algorithms from foundations to applications

Quantum computers are designed to use quantum mechanics to outperform any standard, “classical” computer based only on the laws of classical physics. Following many years of experimental and theoretical developments, it is anticipated that quantum computers will soon be built that cannot be simulated by today’s most powerful supercomputers. But to take advantage of a quantum computer requires a quantum algorithm: and designing and applying quantum algorithms requires contributions to be made at all levels of the theoretical “stack”, from underpinning mathematics through to detailed running time analysis. In this talk, I will describe one example of this process. First, an abstract quantum algorithm due to Aleksandrs Belovs is used to speed up classical search algorithms based on the technique known as backtracking (“trial and error”). Then this quantum algorithm can be applied to fundamental constraint satisfaction problems such as graph colouring, sometimes achieving substantial speedups over leading classical algorithms. The talk will aim to give a flavour of the mathematics involved in quantum algorithm design, rather than going into full details.

Further information

The talk will be held in Enderby Lecture Theatre, Physics, from 4pm – 5pm and will be followed by a drinks reception in the Maths common room.

The event is open to University of Bristol staff and students.

Abstract: Homological stability is a topological property shared by many configuration spaces and groups of matrices, or, more generally, groups of symmetries. In recent years, it has turned into a powerful computational tool. The talk will give an overview of the subject.

The past two years have seen rapid advances in building increasingly large-scale quantum computers. It is now widely expected that there will be a demonstration, within the coming months, of a device that cannot be simulated by any classical computer (so called ‘quantum computational supremacy’). The prospect of a relatively near-term device capable of a quantum advantage has sparked a huge amount of excitement both in academia and in industry. The conference will cover the central questions in this emerging field, focusing on how to use quantum computers to solve some of the grand challenges of our time, such as drug discovery or the development of energy-efficient industrial processes or new catalysts.

Topics will include quantum simulation, computational quantum chemistry and quantum algorithms for solving optimization problems. We will also invite speakers to talk about practical aspects of quantum programming and running experiments on current and imminent quantum computing hardware. The final theme will look to the future, with talks on scaling up quantum computers and new quantum algorithms.

The conference will include invited and contributed talks, together with a session bringing together end-users with quantum computing experts, and a poster session.

The registration deadline has passed.

Conference participants may also be interested in the Bristol Quantum Information Technologies Workshop, to be held in Bristol the previous week (1-3 April).

Keynote Speakers 

Iordanis Kerenidis (CNRS, IRIF, Univ Paris Diderot)
Hartmut Neven (Google)

Invited Speakers 

Ryan Babbush (Google)
Andrew Childs (University of Maryland)
Eleni Diamanti (CNRS, Sorbonne University)
Aram Harrow (MIT)
Naomi Nickerson (PsiQuantum)
David Poulin (Université de Sherbrooke)
Marcus da Silva (Rigetti)
Kristan Temme (IBM)
Ronald de Wolf (CWI)

Accepted talks

Slides

Poulin

Harrow

de Wolf

Childs

Babbush

Timetable 

The conference will start on Monday 8th April with registration at 10am, and finish on Wednesday 10th April at 4pm. The programme is here.

Venue

School of Chemistry, Lecture Theatre 2, University of Bristol, Cantock’s Close, Bristol, BS8 1TS.

The venue can be found using the University’s Google precinct map.

A few recommended dinner venues, pubs, and things to do are highlighted on the following map:

Accommodation

For planning purposes the venue is located within the main University precinct, postcode BS8 1TS. Information on local hotels and average prices can be found here. Alternatively you can find further information on other accommodation options by visiting the Visit Bristol website.

Contacts

Please contact Francoise Blake regarding any administrative aspects of the conference.

Organising Committee

Steve Brierley (Riverlane)
Noah Linden (University of Bristol)
Ashley Montanaro (University of Bristol)

Programme Committee

Simon Benjamin (University of Oxford)
Dominic Berry (Macquarie University)
Steve Brierley (Riverlane)
Harry Buhrman (CWI / QuSoft)
Elizabeth Crosson (University of New Mexico)
Noah Linden (University of Bristol)
Ashley Montanaro (University of Bristol, chair)
Naomi Nickerson (PsiQuantum)

Local Organising Committee

Chris Cade
João Fernando Doriguello
Noah Linden
Lana Mineh
Ashley Montanaro
Alex Moylett
Stephen Piddock
Dominic Verdon

Call for submissions (deadline 11 January 2019)

Submissions are invited for contributed talks. Talks will be selected on the basis of scientific excellence; fit to the topic of the workshop; and balance of the programme.

Submissions should correspond to recent research contributions to quantum information and computation. The workshop will not publish proceedings, and work which has been, or will be, published elsewhere is welcome. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Applications of quantum computers
• Architectures for quantum computing
• Quantum algorithms
• Quantum compilation and circuit optimisation
• Quantum error-correction and fault-tolerance
• Simulation of quantum systems
• Theory of near-term quantum computing
• Verification of quantum devices

All submissions for talks must be made electronically through the online submission system EasyChair at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=qctip2019

A submission should consist of a full paper corresponding to the work, including technical details. This manuscript may be from an on-line repository, such as the arXiv; however, a PDF copy of it must be uploaded. If your submission consists of multiple papers they should be merged into a single file.

We encourage all workshop attendees to present a poster. Poster details can be provided during registration.

Conflict of interest: Programme Committee members must declare a conflict of interest on submissions where this is relevant (such as ones where they, or a close associate, are a coauthor) so that they are not involved in the discussion of these papers.

Important dates

Submission deadline: 11 January 2019, 23:59 (Anywhere on Earth)
Notification: 8 February 2019
Registration deadline: extended to 15 March 2019

Sponsors

We are very grateful to our sponsors:

Gold

Silver