Spring 2024 CS 593 / MA 595
Intro to Quantum Computing

• Schedule and location: TR 10:30-11:45AM in Wetherill Lab of Chemistry 320
• Syllabus:https://www.math.purdue.edu/~esampert/IQC/syllabus.pdf
• Course webpage: https://www.math.purdue.edu/~esampert/IQC/
• Detailed course calendar: https://www.math.purdue.edu/~esampert/IQC/cal
• Gradebook and announcements are handled via Brightspace (Purdue login required): https://purdue.brightspace.com/d2l/home/983956
• Video recording archive: Purdue Mediaspace Channel
• Instructor: Eric Samperton
• Email: my first name followed by AT purdue.edu
• Office hour: Thursdays after class, 11:45am-1:15pm in my office MATH 402
• TA: Vatsal Jha
• Email: jha36 followed by the usual
• Office hour: Thursdays, 5:00-6:00pm in HAAS 143(5) and Fridays, 2:00-3:00pm in HAAS G072(3)

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Content

An introduction to quantum computation focused primarily on foundations, theory, and rigor, rather than specific hardware implementations or heuristic applications. We will begin with the axioms of quantum mechanics and the most common formulation of quantum computation based on quantum circuits. We will then develop the core primitives in the quantum algorithms toolkit (such as quantum Fourier transforms, phase estimation, and Trotterization/quantum simulation) and establish some elementary complexitytheoretic results (including some oracle separations, and various lower and upper bounds), as well as work through the crown jewel of quantum algorithms to date - Shor's factoring algorithm. Along the way, we will see some of the more curious aspects of quantum information facilitated by quantum entanglement (such as Grover search, quantum teleportation, superdense coding, Bell violations). The last portion of the course will develop the basic theory of quantum error-correcting codes and the fault tolerance problem.

In particular, you may want to note that I do not plan to cover quantum optimization, quantum machine learning, or post-quantum cryptography in any depth (if at all).

Prerequisites

Some first-year and most second-year graduate students in CS, physics or mathematics should be comfortable in the class. Familiarity with at least one of the following at the level of a first year graduate student will be expected of all students: CS theory, quantum mechanics, abstract algebra, functional analysis, linear algebra. Please inquire with Eric if you have any questions about whether this course is appropriate for you.

Reading

Required textbook (unfortunately not available online through Purdue library, but it's a classic book that is probably worth owning):

• Quantum computation and quantum information by Nielsen, Chuang

Further reading, with links to online access:

• Classical and quantum computation by Kitaev, Shen, Vyalyi
• Quantum computing science Democritus by Aaronson
• A concise introduction to quantum probability, quantum mechanics, and quantum computation, by Kuperberg

Grading

Grades will be based on homework (60%), course notes contribution (20%) and participation (20%).

• Homework: it will be assigned once every week or two, for a total of somewhere between 6 and 16 assignments. You should expect the assignments to be longer and more frequent at the beginning of the course as we work through essential foundational material. Homework will be posted on the detailed course calendar page. You should submit your assignments as a single scanned PDF to our Brightspace site. You may submit your assignments in teams of 2.
• Course notes contribution: students will rotate preparing typed notes (using LaTeX) for my lectures, to be posted on the course website for all to share. This must be done in a timely manner, so that your classmates may use the notes for reference. How many times each student must do this will depend on course enrollment. Currently enrollment is high, so I expect everybody will only have to do this once. We'll discuss in class how to schedule each student's note-taking day. I'll do it myself for a few days (e.g. the first week).
• Participation: if you can't regularly attend class and engage with me by asking questions and contributing to discussions, then you should not be enrolled for credit.

Privacy

All of the regularly scheduled course meetings will be recorded and made publicly available on the course Media Space channel, and possibly other places too (e.g. YouTube). If you have privacy concerns, please do let me know!

Reasonable accommodations

Any students with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations should please contact both me and DRC as soon as possible. There won't be any exams or anything like that, but, e.g., if the videos, course notes, or above textbooks are not accessible for some reason, I would love to be able to fix that.