W&M Featured Events
[PAST EVENT] Physics Colloquium
Andrey Antipov, Microsoft Station Q, Title of Talk: Majorana quasiparticles in the quantum computing quest
Abstract: The future progress of science and technology requires general solutions for quantum problems. Some of these problems, such as the design of advanced materials, in specific cases can be treated by classical computers, but often approximately or at exponentially high cost. In general a dedicated quantum device is needed, i.e. a quantum computer. To really solve complex problems these computers need to be scalable and increase their computational power with the number of elementary information units - qubits. This puts strict requirements on the quality of qubit hardware. In particular the qubits should not change their state at random during a computation, i.e. they should not react to the external noise. Quantum systems with fractionalized excitations, in particular, Majorana zero modes have been long sought as great candidates to serve as a qubit platform as they offer an exponential protection from external noise. In this talk I will review the recent progress done at Microsoft to demonstrate and utilize systems with Majorana zero modes as a qubit platform.