CIQC News

06/17/24 Annual Meeting/NSF Site Visit 2024

This year's annual meeting was held in-person combined with the NSF site visit on the UC Berkeley campus. The two day event was highly successful and well received by participants, as we focused on collaboration and creating conversation opportunities throughout.

The conference encompassed presentations, breakout discussion sessions, and posters on the first and second day.

01/03/21 CIQC Introduction

Realizing the quantum computer is THE scientific challenge of our time. Like previous grand scientific challenges, such as, for example, the human genome project or the direct detection of gravitational waves, quantum computing represents a radical advance in our ability to probe and understand nature. And yet the impact of quantum computing stands out as even greater than other recent grand challenges. We observe that the classical computer now stands as the most powerful scientific tool; for example, it underpins genomics, the detection and interpretation of gravity wave signals, and...

08/28/20 Center kick-off

Good omen: we kicked off the center with nearly a hundred participants from our Institute members four days before our NSF funding start date!

09/03/21 Welcome our two new Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes!

See here: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/announcements/090221.jsp

02/11/22 Hartmut Haeffner Research Highlight: Coupling Two Laser-Cooled Ions via a Room-Temperature Conductor

From CIQC PI Hartmut Haeffner’s research group:

Researchers at UC Berkeley have coupled the motion of two ions spaced by 0.6 mm to each other by literally placing a wire between them. The wire and the electrodes used to trap remain at room temperature while the ions are at temperatures near absolute zero at -273 degrees Celsius. One ion was kept "hot" at 250 mK while another ion was kept cold at 2 mK. By measuring the temperature of the hot ion, the researchers could detect that the cold ion coupled to the hot ion slowing its heating. Laser cooling ions is important both for quantum...

01/29/21 New qubit candidate: trapped electrons

Electrons have been trapped for the first time in a Paul trap. This opens the path to controlling trapped electron qubits much in the same way as trapped ions with the main differences that no laser light is required and that electrons are much lighter. Thus a trapped electron quantum computer could operate with less technical overhead and faster that a trapped ion system.

Read more in Phys Rev X 11...

09/03/21 Thomas Vidick (Caltech) named a Simons Investigator

Thomas Vidick, Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, has been named a Simons Investigator by the Simons Foundation. The intent of the Simons Investigators in Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics and Computer Science programs is to support outstanding theoretical scientists in their most productive years, when they are establishing creative new research directions. Awardees are...

02/11/22 David Weld Research Highlight: Observation of the quantum boomerang effect

From CIQC PI David Weld’s research group:

By throwing atoms and watching them come back to the starting point, experimentalists have now observed for the first time a dynamical feature of disordered quantum matter called the “quantum boomerang effect.” More than 60 years ago Phil Anderson pointed out that quantum mechanical effects of disorder in a material can localize electrons– that is, prevent them from leaving a small neighborhood, thereby turning a metal into an insulator. Only recently, theorists predicted that if a particle is launched in any direction in an Anderson...

01/24/21 Simons Colloquium kick off

The Colloquium talks are intended as "an introduction to research in area X", aiming to declutter, and identify the key results and techniques in the area, as well as the most important directions for further research. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion, as well as an opportunity to meet and hang out with colleagues on gather.town afterwards.

First speaker will be Aram Harrow from MIT.

03/13/23 Job openings at the CIQC

The Challenge Institute for Quantum Computation (CIQC) is looking to hire excellent people for two open positions: (1) executive director, and (2) scientific communications and community building. Both positions will be based at UC Berkeley and both are in-person (remote work doesn’t make sense for building community and communicating effectively).

(1) For the executive director, we are looking for a person with excellent planning, administrative, communication, and management skills, and, most preferably, a background in quantum science and technology. This leader will interact...