The topic of quantum computing has been popping up in particle physics news lately. In October, Caltech announced that a technique involving machine learning was able to tease out a Higgs boson signal from a mountain of data, work that was supported by INQNET, a program for accelerating quantum technologies. And earlier this year, the University of Chicago, Argonne and Fermilab launched the Chicago Quantum Exchange to explore the potential of quantum computing in diverse scientific disciplines.
It’s a good time for those of us interested in both high-energy physics and the potential of quantum computing to exchange ideas about how we can connect the two fields. To that end, Fermilab is hosting from Dec. 6-7 a workshop titled “Near-Term Applications of Quantum Computing.” Registration is free, and all are welcome to attend.
We’ve designed the workshop to explore whether high-energy physics can offer test case problems for quantum computers, and we expect attendees to help identify problems that lend themselves to experiments that are feasible on quantum computers (including analog systems) in the near term.
Experts will present on topics such as software tools for large-scale quantum computing and simulating quantum field theories on quantum computers.
The University of Southern California’s Daniel Lidar, one of the workshop speakers, will give the Fermilab Colloquium that week: “Adventures in quantum optimization with noisy qubits.”
Sign up now for the workshop. We hope to see you in Curia II on Dec. 6 and 7!
Stefan Prestel is a scientist in the Fermilab Theory Department and one of the workshop co-organizers.