Tutorial: From Quantum Simulation to Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation

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Abstract
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The migration from analog to digital classical computation more than sixty years ago revolutionized civilization and defined the modern information age. Behind this change was the need to be robust to perturbations: digital computation can be error-corrected, and hence can be made scalable. This same migration must occur for quantum computation. Today, rapidly increasing research effort and resources are directed toward developing error-corrected schemes and architectures for fault-tolerant quantum computation. In this tutorial, I give a personal perspective on the acute need for this advancement, starting from an area of study that I have been invested in: quantum simulation and condensed-matter physics. I will introduce basic concepts in quantum error correction and fault tolerance, give a broad (but non-exhaustive) overview of the field and adjacent areas, and conclude by identifying some interesting directions and challenges. This tutorial is introductory and prior knowledge of quantum error correction or simulation is not required.

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About the Speaker
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Jin Ming received his BS in physics and computer science from Caltech in 2023, and is in his second year pursuing a PhD in physics at Harvard University, advised by Prof. Norman Yao. He received numerous institutional awards at Caltech, including the Richard Feynman and George W. Housner prizes for his academic achievements and research. At the national level, he received the prestigious APS LeRoy Apker award, an accolade given to two students in the United States annually, in 2024 for his work on measurement-induced entanglement phase transitions. His research has spanned quantum simulation and condensed-matter physics, and he is currently most interested in quantum error correction and fault-tolerant quantum computation.