Jun 29 2015
110 participants and 14 prominent lecturers gathered for the QUTE-EUROPE Summer School 2015 on 21-27 June at Hindåsgården. Göran Wendin, professor of theoretical physics at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience - MC2 - is chairman of the local organizing committee. We got the chance to ask a few questions about the event.
Quantum Simulation and Computation" />
What is the QUTE-EUROPE Summer School 2015?
"The European Commission is presently funding a number of projects in quantum information processing (QIP) aiming to build small devices and systems for quantum computing and quantum simulation. These devices are based on a number of physical ways to create quantum bits - qubits - e.g. atoms and ions in traps, photons in optical devices, electron and nuclear spins in semiconductors and quantum dots, artificial atoms in superconducting circuits, and more", says Göran Wendin.
He continues:
"QUTE-EUROPE is an EC-funded Coordination Action with the mission to glue these QIP projects together, and in particular to organise conferences and schools. MC2 at Chalmers was chosen to organise the QUTE-EUROPE Summer School 2015 - QESS2015: Quantum Simulation and Computation: From fundamentals to applications and implementations."
Which target group do you have?
"The participants at QESS2015 are PhD and Master's students in Physics and Quantum information science from all over the world, but mainly from Europe. The aim of the summer school is to provide a unifying framework that reflects the state of the art in the QIP field worldwide, with special emphasis on quntum simulation (QS) because QS has emerged as a driver of short- and mid-term progress in the in QIP field."
How many participants do you have?
"110 students and 14 lecturers."
Where do they come from?
"The students come mainly from the EU, but there is quite a large number of students from outside the EU - USA, Canada, Australia, Russia among other countries. The school includes around 40 students from the IDEA League collaboration involving RWT Aachen, ETH Zurich, TU Delft, and Chalmers. The lecturers come from Europe, USA and Australia."
What is happening during the summer school?
"There is an intense program with top-notch international lecturers from the main areas of quantum information, describing fundamentals of the fields as well as well as the most recent progress and challenges. Broadly speaking, the morning sessions are tutorial, while the afternoon sessions are more topical and specialised, including poster sessions. A major Wednesday afternoon event is a boat trip into the Gothenburg archipelago - possibly we will get a glimpse of the boats from Volvo Ocean Race."
Mention some highlights!
"One could mention the the idea to start the school on Sunday afternoon with two general talks by prominent and very entertaining scienctists, Anton Zeilinger from Vienna, and Seth Lloyd from MIT. This really broke the ice and initiated a lot of discussion, and this spirit now permeates the school."
Besides Chalmers, the organizations behind the summer school are QUTE-EUROPE Coordination Action (EU), IDEA League, Linneqs (VR), ScaleQIT (EU) and SIQS (EU). The local organizing committe consisted of Göran Wendin, Jonas Bylander, Per Delsing, Göran Johansson and Vitaly Shumeiko. The planning has been ongoing since last autumn. The summer school has got a lot of administrative support from Susannah Carlsson at MC2 as well.
Is it the first time Chalmers is arranging this summer school?
"Yes, the school is unique for Chalmers in two ways: it represents an activity of QUTE-EUROPE during 2013-2016, and it contains an IDEA League school for the first time. The school will continue within IDEA League, probably with a session in 2017", says Göran Wendin.