EQUS Seminar Series: Dr Michael Stefszky

EQUS Seminar Series: Dr Michael Stefszky

Date: Wednesday 15th January 2025

Time: 10:00am – 11:00pm AWST, 12:00pm -1:00pm AEST,
1:00pm-2:00pm AEDT

Location: Online. Please check your emails for Zoom details.

Title:  The Power of Counting Photons: Photonic quantum computing in large optical networks

Bio: Michael competed his PhD in the group of Professor Ping Koy Lam at the Australian National University on designing a squeezed light source for use in LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory. After completing this PhD, Michael worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Andrew White for 6 months on the generation of ultra-narrow bandwidth photons before accepting a position in the group of Christine Silberhorn in Germany in 2012. In the Integrated Quantum Optics group in Paderborn Michael worked on nonlinear interactions in optical waveguide resonators. More recently, Michael has been leading the Gaussian Boson Sampling experiment taking place within the Integrated Quantum Optics group and that has begun producing data as of July this year.

Abstract:  Gaussian Boson Sampling (GBS) is a powerful example of a NISQ device, where one wishes to generate a sample from the output distribution of bosons propagating through a large interferometer. Classical solutions to this problem require the calculation of large matrix Hafnians, a problem that is #P-hard and therefore computationally intensive. An alternative method for generating samples is to build the corresponding experiment and “simply” count photons at the outputs of a system. The power of the platform is evident in the fact that it has been utilised to provide compelling evidence of quantum computational advantage. Further investigations attempting to exploit the quantum advantage intrinsic to such systems have shown that the GBS architecture can be mapped to real-world problems, such as drug discovery and the calculation of molecular vibronic spectra. In this talk I will introduce GBS and give some background into recent progress within the field before giving an overview of the GBS system that has been built in the Integrated Quantum Optics group, known as the Paderborn Quantum Sampler (PaQS).

Recordings of past seminars are available to EQUS members via the Hub (requires login).