Professor David Kribs invited to give Douglas Lectures at Texas A&M

We are pleased to announce that Professor David Kribs was invited to give the prestigious Douglas Lectures at Texas A&M University in October 2017.

The Douglas Lectures honor Distinguished University Professor Ronald Douglas, who has been a member of the Department of Mathematics since 1996. Douglas Lecturers are distinguished mathematicians who work in an area close to the research interests of the honoree (operator theory, Banach and C* algebras). The series typically consists of three lectures over the course of a week during the academic year. The series is made possible by an endowment established through generous initial gifts from Ciprian Foias and Carl Pearcy, augmented by contributions from friends and colleagues of Professor Douglas.

Lecture #1: Quantum Information: A (Brief) Mathematical Introduction
Quantum information is an umbrella term that is used to encompass such topics as quantum computing, quantum cryptography, quantum information theory, quantum error correction, quantum entanglement theory, and quantum information processing. In this talk, I will give a brief introduction to as many fundamental topics in quantum information that I can possibly fit into one talk. I'll start by going through the formulation of quantum information from postulates of quantum mechanics, with emphasis on the linear algebra and operator theoretic perspective. Time dependent, I will then touch on aspects of quantum entanglement theory, quantum algorithms and universal sets of unitary gates, quantum error correction, and quantum privacy.

Lecture #2: Quantum Error Correction
Quantum error correction as a field of study goes back over two decades, growing out of early attempts to build small-scale quantum computers and develop a theoretical underpinning for experimental attempts to control features of evolving quantum systems. The subject has since seen significant development and now connects with every area of quantum information science. In this talk, I will give an introduction to quantum error correction through a mathematical lens. I will focus on the basic framework, and touch on examples and results that involve aspects of group theory, matrix theory, and operator algebras.

Lecture #3: Quantum Privacy and Complementarity
The first significant real-world applications of quantum information appear to be around the corner in the realm of cryptography and communication privacy. Private quantum channels and codes are a fundamental notion in quantum privacy, initially discovered almost two decades ago through efforts to construct quantum analogues of the classical one-time pad. In recent years the subject has blossomed, with a new focus on the development of a structure theory for private quantum codes. These recent efforts have partly been motivated by a realization that private quantum codes are complementary, in a mathematically explicit way, to quantum error correcting codes. I will give an introduction to the topic in this talk, with focus on mathematical aspects of the emerging theory and connections with quantum error correction.

For more information about the lectures, visit the Texas A&M website.