Quantum Physics

The by-now classic Ryu-Takayanagi formula associates the entanglement entropy of a spatial region in a holographic field theory with the area of a certain minimal surface in the bulk. Despite its simplicity and beauty, this formula raises a number of stubborn conceptual problems. I will present a reformulation which does not involve the areas of surfaces. This reformulation leads to a picture of entanglement in the field theory being carried by Planck-thickness "bit threads" in the bulk. I will argue that this picture helps to resolve a number of the conceptual difficulties surrounding the RT formula

Raussendorf introduced a powerful model of fault tolerant measurement based quantum computation, which can be understood as a layering (or “foliation”) of a multiplicity of Kitaev’s toric code.  I will discuss our generalisation of Raussendorf’s construction to an arbitrary CSS code.  We call this a Foliated Quantum Code.  Decoding this foliated construction is not necessarily straightforward, so I will discuss an example in which we foliate a family of finite-rate quantum turbo codes, and present the results of numerical simulations of the decoder performance.

If I have time, I will discuss some ongoing work (with Gavin Brennan) on relational time applied to topological quantum field theories, in particular, how anyonic systems with essentially trivial dynamics can still exhibit correlations that track “time".