Quantum information science (QIS) is the interdisciplinary field that investigates how to control the behavior of systems obeying the laws of quantum mechanics to make them perform information-processing tasks. The task of engineering and controlling quantum systems to perform interesting information-processing tasks is one of the grand challenges for 21st Century science and technology. If successful, it will have far ranging implications for many technologies, including computation, communications, and environmental sensing. The Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC) is a research center headquartered at the University of New Mexico, with an experimental node at the University of Arizona. Research at CQuIC focuses on the development of tools for the control of quantum systems and the application of those tools to information-processing tasks. Under this five-year award, CQuIC becomes a Focused Research Hub in Theoretical Physics (FRHTP). The activities of the FRHTP are centered on a stable of three postdoctoral research fellows who will, first, work with CQuIC's senior scientists and research students on projects generated by the FRHTP's Project Directors and, second, bring new expertise to CQuIC and introduce new research projects into the portfolio of quantum-control projects. The chief outreach activity under the FRHTP is CQuIC's sponsorship and organization of the Annual Workshop of the Southwest Quantum Information and Technology Network. Held every February, the Workshop is attended by 150-225 scientists, with an emphasis on participation by undergraduate, graduate-student, and postdoctoral researchers.
QIS is a large, diverse field that draws from a variety of disciplines in the sciences and engineering. To do effective research in this field requires knowledge and expertise from many different backgrounds and attention to learning new theoretical concepts and experimental techniques as they are developed within or brought into the field. CQuIC leaders categorize research projects in this diverse field in two ways. The first focuses on the type of quantum system to be controlled. This encompasses the control and measurement of complex quantum systems, where the complexity arises because systems have many interacting parts (many-body systems), have Hilbert spaces of moderate to large dimension (qudits), or have complex dynamics by virtue of contact with environments or ancillas (open quantum systems). The second categorizes the work according to objective, such as the development of tools for the control and measurement of complex quantum systems or on their application to specific computational, communication, or metrological control tasks. Within this general framework, CQuIC pursues several research directions: foundational investigations in quantum information, control, and measurement; control of qudit atomic and optical systems; quantum control and squeezing of collective atomic spins; and analog quantum computation and simulation. Through close collaboration with experimental partners both within CQuIC, and within the larger SQuInT network, CQuIC advances both fundamental and practical aspects of quantum information science.
