Process Algebras for Quantum Compilation

  • Clare Horsman | Keio University

In this talk I give an introduction to the use of process algebras in quantum computing, focusing particularly on their use as compiler tools for surface code topological quantum computing. Process algebras describe the flow of dependencies and information within a computational process, and are extensively used in classical computation. A quantum graphical process algebra, “quantum picturalism”, has been developed over the last few years to enable similar reasoning about quantum processes. I will introduce the basic graphical language, and then show how for the case of surface code quantum computing there is a physical isomorphism between the graphical process dependencies and the defect structures created to form qubits within the code lattice. I then show how this enables us to use the graphical process algebra as a native language for compilation of surface code algorithms.

Reference: ‘Quantum picturalism for topological cluster-state computing’ (2011) New J. Phys. 13 095011

Speaker Details

Clare Horsman is an Assistant Professor at Keio University’s Shonan Fujisawa campus in Japan, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Bristol (UK). She obtained a PhD from Imperial College London in Physics, and then joined Hewlett Packard as a postdoctoral researcher in quantum computing. She has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Bristol and the University of Oxford and joined Keio University in 2010, where she is part of the Advancing Quantum Architecture (AQUA) group. Her research interests are the theoretical underpinnings of scalable quantum computing.

    • Portrait of Jeff Running

      Jeff Running

Series: Microsoft Research Talks