CAREER: A Field Guide to Many-Body Quantum Information in Noisy Environments

The vision of quantum information science and technology (QIST) is to process information with quantum interactions, performing computational logic with improved efficiency via the unique non-local correlations---entanglement---permeating many-body quantum systems. As such, entanglement is a critical resource for all applications of quantum devices, promoting them to be exponentially more complex than the sum of their individual parts. While the technology of quantum computing is rapidly progressing, practical insight into correspondingly large-scale entanglement has remained challenging, especially in the context of more than a few qubits (or qudits, modes, etc.) and in the presence of realistic noisy experimental environments. This program responds to this challenge by leveraging quantum fields as a guide to new theory and calculation techniques that specifically focus on the scalable entanglement structures found in our fundamental descriptions of the particles and forces of Nature. Beyond critical resource characterization, this research is positioned to connect with distributed quantum sensing, to impact our designs of quantum simulations relevant to collider experiments, and to guide hardware specifications of modular quantum architectures for scientific applications in subatomic physics. The study of mixed-state entanglement structure between detectors at spacelike separations in the free scalar field vacuum has introduced new computational tools to the many-body QIST toolbox, e.g., improving quantification of entanglement distribution requirements in quantum simulations and determining optimal entanglement sensing protocols. This program extends the partnership between fields and many-body entanglement insights by considering more complex field states: interacting vacuums with and without local symmetries, those inherent in current quantum computational architectures, and the real-time evolution of key dynamical processes. Capturing the interplay of quantum correlations in these directions will leverage non-Gaussian techniques and tensor networks with carefully controlled computational precision. In doing so, this program aims to discover new properties of many-body quantum information along our path to entanglement-informed design of quantum field simulations. Students involved in the research program will advance our ability to simultaneously think abstractly in the mathematical foundations of quantum information and think physically in collaboration with natural entanglement to codesign quantum simulations at scales relevant to the next decade and future of quantum technology. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2541830 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Natalie Klco | Institution: Duke University, DURHAM, NC | Award Amount: $450,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2541830 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2541830.html