Talks

In this lecture, I will cover theories of adaptation that do and do not explicitly account for phenotypes, in particular regarding distribution of fitness effects of mutations across genotypes and environment.

In the one-way model of measurement based quantum computing, unlike the quantum circuit model, a computation is driven not by unitary gates but by successive adaptive single-qubit measurements on an entangled resource state. So-called flow properties ensure that a one-way computation, described by a measurement pattern, is deterministic overall (up to Pauli corrections on output qubits). Translations between quantum circuits and measurement patterns have been used to show universality of the one-way model, verify measurement patterns, optimise quantum circuits, and more. Yet while it is straightforward to translate a circuit into a measurement pattern, the question of algorithmic "circuit extraction" -- how to translate general measurement patterns with flow to ancilla-free circuits -- had long remained open for all but the simplest type of flow. In this talk, we will recap the one-way model of quantum computing and then explain how the problem of circuit extraction was resolved using the ZX-calculus as a common language for circuits and measurement patterns. We also discuss applications.

There are well established conjectures about the symmetries of SIC-POVMs, and the number fields needed to construct them. If the dimension is of the form n^2 + 3 there is also an algorithm that allows us to calculate them, making use of Stark units in a subfield of the full number field. The algorithm works in the 72 dimensions where it has been tested. Joint work with (among others) Markus Grassl and Gary McConnell