TaQC · Taming, controlling and harnessing quantum complexity

Taming, controlling and harnessing quantum complexity

In the past decade, we have witnessed a proliferation of devices that leverage quantum effects and promise to fundamentally transform the technological and industrial landscape. Unlike previous paradigm shifts in the area of quantum technologies -- like the development of the transistor – which revolved around the speed-up and facilitation of classical tasks, the current generation of quantum technologies goes one important step further: it aims at harnessing the fundamentally different way that information itself is expressed, transformed, and processed in the quantum realm. The formidable practical and foundational advances of the past years notwithstanding, much work still lies ahead in order to scale, control and harness quantum effects to the fullest extent, consequently making their power routinely and reliably available. To date, most research on exploitable quantum phenomena has focused on entanglement as the basis for quantum technologies. This is a spatial quantum resource, in the sense that it describes quantum correlations that are shared by spatially separated parties. In complex quantum processes and devices, quantum information will not only be shared though, but also processed and transmitted, leading to quantum correlations in both space and time. Consequently, the TaQC project aims to widen the scope and provide a comprehensive understanding of spatio-temporal quantum effects and develop the means to characterise, control and predict them. In particular, the project focuses on three main questions: (i) how do realistic constraints condition the distribution of spatio-temporal entanglement in a quantum process? (ii) how can general quantum processes be characterized and what can be learned about them efficiently? And (iii) how can optimal models for quantum processes be constructed and their resourcefulness be estimated? The development of a robust theoretical framework to address these questions relies on insights from quantum information theory, quantum metrology, the theory of open quantum system dynamics as well as higher order quantum maps. Its implementation will provide a holistic understanding of quantum effects as they occur in complex quantum processes, and help pave the way towards their reliable and sustainable exploitation.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union