Rainer Blatt - The Quantum Way of Doing Computations, Simulations and Measurements

Rainer Blatt

Institute for Experimental Physics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

Abstract

In this talk, the basic functional principles of quantum information processing are reviewed and the state-of-the-art of the Innsbruck trapped-ion quantum computer is reported. With strings of trapped ions, we implement a quantum information processor and perform quantum operations. We present an overview on the available quantum toolbox and discuss the scalability of the approach. The quantum way of doing computations is illustrated with analog and digital quantum simulations [1,2]. Using tailored quantum operations, we obtain optimized measurements for spectroscopy [3]. A commercially available NISQ-type quantum processor has been developed by AQT and is already available for industrial applications. Within the framework of the Munich Quantum Valley, we seek to establish a quantum ecosystem to further develop quantum computers and, more generally, to provide advanced quantum technologies for future research and industrial applications.

[1] E. A. Martinez et al., Nature 534, 516 (2016).
[2] C. Kokail et al., Nature 569, 355–360 (2019).
[3] C. Marciniak et al., Nature 603, 604 (2022).

Biography

Rainer Blatt graduated in physics from the University of Mainz in 1979. He finished his doctorate in 1981 and worked as research assistant in the team of Günter Werth. In 1982 Blatt received a research grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) to go to the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), Boulder, and work with John L. Hall (Nobel Prize winner 2005) for a year. In 1983 he went on to the Freie Universität Berlin, and in the following year joined the working group of Peter E. Toschek at the University of Hamburg. After another stay in the US, Rainer Blatt applied to qualify as a professor by receiving the “venia docendi” in experimental physics in 1988. In the period from 1989 until 1994 he worked as a Heisenberg research fellow at the University of Hamburg and returned several times to JILA in Boulder. In 1994 he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Göttingen and in the following year he was offered a chair in experimental physics at the University of Innsbruck. Since 2003 Blatt has also held the position of Scientific Director at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). Rainer Blatt is married, with three children.


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Location details

Max-Planck-Zentren und -Schulen