Course description: Ph/CS 219C is the third term in a three-term course on quantum computation and quantum information science. Topics covered in 219A included density operators, quantum operations, quantum entanglement, quantum circuits, and quantum algorithms. Ph/CS 219B covered quantum error correction and fault-tolerant quantum computing. Ph/CS 219C will cover quantum Shannon theory and other topics to be decided.
Course website: Here
Instructor:
John Preskill,
206 Annenberg, X-6691, email: preskill(at)caltech(dot)edu
Teaching assistant:
Jielun (Chris) Chen, email:
jchen9(at)caltech(dot)edu
TA Office hours: Wednesday 4-5 pm (only on weeks when HW is due) on the 4th
floor Lauritsen, common space
Students may also request meetings with the TA at other times.
Canvas:
We will be using the Canvas Learning Management System. You can login to Canvas
using your Caltech IMSS credentials.
Class meetings: Monday and Wednesday 2:30 – 3:55 pm in 269 Lauritsen, starting April 3. The lectures are in-person only and will not be recorded.
Homework assignments and grading: The course is graded pass-fail. Homework will be submitted, and graded homework will be returned, using Canvas.
You may receive partial credit if you describe a thoughtful approach to the problem, even if you are unable to solve it completely.
Lectures and references:
The primary reference for most of the lectures will be these lecture
notes (JP). Other useful books are Quantum
Computation and Quantum Information
by Nielsen and Chuang (NC), Classical
and Quantum Computation by Kitaev, Shen, and Vyalyi (KSV), Quantum
Computing Since Democritus by Aaronson, The
Theory of Quantum Information by Watrous, and
Quantum
Information Theory by Wilde.
Other recommended lecture notes: John Watrous, Umesh Vazirani, Andrew Childs, Scott Aaronson, Ronald de Wolf
The first half of the course will cover material in Chapter 10 of the lecture notes. Wilde’s book (available on the arXiv) is a good supplementary reference for this material.
Homework assignments:
Problem
Set 1. Von Neumann entropy, due Thursday 14 April.
Problem
Set 2. Information gain, due Thursday 18 May.
Problem
Set 3. Quantum channel capacities, due Thursday 1 June.