Applications of the information-theoretic method in quantum computation

Abstract:

Quantum phenomena offer the possibility of more efficient computation in a host of information processing scenarios. At the same time, their unusual properties also make it challenging for us to characterize potential gains in efficiency. In this talk, we will review recent results in different settings such as distributed computation and learning theory. All of these results are based on the information-theoretic method, which provides an intuitive approach for understanding highly counter-intuitive behaviour.

Biography:

Ashwin Nayak is a Professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, and Institute for Quantum Computing at University of Waterloo, Canada.

Ashwin received his B.Tech. at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1995) and his Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley (1999), both in Computer Science. After holding post-doctoral positions jointly at DIMACS Center and AT&T Labs–Research, then at California Institute of Technology, he joined University of Waterloo in 2002.

His research primarily revolves around quantum information and computation, with an emphasis on algorithms, complexity, and communication. He continues to work more broadly on theoretical computer science.