Diedrik: Our new quantum master
Friday 8th of september, Diedrik Leijenaar Oksens finished his master project entitled Constructing Quantum Gates Using
Optimization Techniques.
In his work Diedrik started out with a model with two interacting qubits in the form of spin 1/2-particles exposed to the same, dynamic magnetic field. The first aim was to tailor this field so that we could construct specific quantum gates. The next part, the harder one, was to introduce noise and see if we could mitigate this noise by adjusting the magnetic field. The answer to this question was, unfortunately, nah.
Diedrik’s project included the development of a rather advanced MATLAB implementation. Not only did he solve a complex and highly non-convex optimization problem, he also did so by for cost landscapes for which each point required the repeated solution of dynamical equations. Here is one illustration of such a landscape:
This, in turn, involved both the “traditional” Schrödinger equation and the more involved Lindblad equation, the latter for introducing non-reversible noise mechanisms.
The fact that this implementation, in the end, is quite generic – and relies on rather abstract theoretical concepts, renders his work even more impressive.
As I am sure this very text reflects, we, his advisors, are quite proud of Diedrik’s acheivements.
For the next one, we’ll have to see if we can find other ways of mitigating decoherence …