CIQC News 2023

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...

07/13/23 CIQC Annual Meeting

Our Annual meeting was once again held in-person 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 day. The second day was sponsored by the Simons Institute and provided a wide range of speakers.

06/15/23 IPAM Fall 2023 Long Program on Mathematics and Quantum Computing

The CIQC has partnered with the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) to hold a “Long Program” on the topic of Mathematical and Computational Challenges in Quantum Computing. This program combines in-residence research stays at IPAM, right on the UCLA campus, together with an exciting tutorial to open the program and dedicated workshops during the programs. The program takes place during the Fall 2023 term, September 11 -...

08/09/23 Physicists Make Matter out of Light to Find Quantum Singularities

Former Postdoctoral Researcher and current Yale Assistant Professor, Charles Brown, has recently been published in Scientific American. He explains quantum singularities in accessible language, opening the subject to enthusiastic non-scientists.

Read the full article here

09/21/23 Congratulations to Hartmut Häffner, CIQC Director, on your Noyce Initiative Project Funding!

Read more about it here: https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/uc-noyce-initiative/hartmut-haeffner

11/13/23 Malte Schwarz, GSR, Stamper-Kurn UCB Research Group Highly Recommends Research Exchange Program After UCSB Visit

The CIQC graduate student exchange program allowed to me to visit and work with the ultracold atom labs of David Welds’ group at UCSB. During my time there I spent one week with the Strontium optical lattice experiment; I greatly enjoyed learning about new perspectives on optical lattice experiments from a Floquet and quasicrystal point of view. In addition, I got the chance to learn in depth from their optics setups, ultra-high vacuum setups, electronics, experimental control, analysis, and theory simulations. The experience of working with a team of researchers directly for multiple days...

11/26/23 Congratulations Joel Moore, Nick Sherman, and Alex Avdoshkin on your recent publication

In their new work, Universality of critical dynamics with finite entanglement, the goal is to understand how a famous dynamical process, the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism, is affected by different kinds of errors that limit entanglement. Since this mechanism is widely used to study phase transitions with quantum emulators and computers, understanding its robustness is crucial to future applications of quantum computing. This work will help to answer the question...