[TYPES/announce] FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Spring School on Quantum Structures in Physics and Computer Science, 19--22 May 2014

[Jamie Vicary]

We are pleased to make the final announcement for the following event:

  SPRING SCHOOL ON QUANTUM STRUCTURES
  IN PHYSICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

  * 19--22 May 2014, University of Oxford, UK
  * http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ss2014

This school will present a range of lectures on quantum structures in
physics and computer science, with a focus on abstract algebraic
techniques, including category theory. It is an ideal event for PhD
students, as well as more established researchers, who would like to
learn more about these exciting topics close to the research frontier.
The courses will be accessible to anyone who has taken a first course
in quantum information. Everyone is welcome to participate, and
registration information can be found on the school web page.

The school will feature the following courses:

  * SAMSON ABRAMSKY, "CONTEXTUAL SEMANTICS". We shall show how quantum
non-locality and contextuality are naturally described and unified in
the language of sheaf theory. This leads to several concrete
developments in quantum information and foundations, including a novel
classification of multipartite entangled states in terms of their
degree of non-locality, a topological analysis of entanglement
monogamy and macroscopic locality, a cohomological characterisation of
contextuality, and a unifying principle for Bell inequalities based on
logical consistency conditions. We also find that the same structures
manifest themselves in a variety of settings in classical computation,
including  relational database theory, constraint satisfaction, and
natural language semantics.

  * JON BARRETT, "CORRELATIONS AND CONTEXTS: THE QUANTUM NO-GO
THEOREMS". Abstract to be announced.

  * BART JACOBS, "KADISON DUALITY". There is a little-known duality in
functional analysis that is appropriately called Kadison duality. It
connects complete order unit spaces and convex compact Hausdorff
spaces. This connection gives a precise formalisation of the duality
in terms of C*-algebras. The lectures present the essential steps of
the proof of Kadison duality---which are scattered around in the
literature---and also show where the duality is relevant. Familiarity
is assumed with basic category theory, linear algebra, and topology.
C*-algebras will be used in the examples.

  * PRAKASH PANANGADEN, "STONE, GELFAND AND TANNAKA DUALITIES". In
this series of three lectures I will discuss the three dualities
mentioned in the title. Stone duality relates Boolean algebras with
certain kinds of topological spaces and is fundamental for logic.
Gelfand duality, relates compact Hausdorff  spaces to commutative
unital C*-algebras. This is a stepping stone towards the much deeper
dualities of interest in quantum mechanics. The third duality,
Pontryagin duality, is what underlies Fourier theory and will involve
group theory

  * PETER SELINGER, "NUMBER-THEORETIC METHODS IN QUANTUM INFORMATION
THEORY". I will discuss the new class of exact and approximate
synthesis algorithms for quantum circuits, based on algebraic number
theory, which came out in the last 2 years. They greatly improve upon
earlier geometry-based algorithms, such as the well-known
Solovay-Kitaev algorithm.

  * BOB COECKE AND ALEKS KISSINGER, "PICTURING QUANTUM PROCESSES". We
present quantum theory, including quantum computing and quantum
foundations, within an entirely diagrammatical formalism. In
particular, we give a detailed presentation of the diagrammatic
language involved, as well as of how to think of quantum theory as a
theory of processes.  The material follows a forthcoming book with the
same title as this course, and avoids any reference to category theory
(but the connection will be explained by other lectures at the
school).

  * CHRIS HEUNEN AND JAMIE VICARY, "CATEGORICAL QUANTUM COMPUTING".
These lectures cover monoidal categories and their use in modelling
the flow of classical and quantum information in quantum mechanics.
The lectures will cover monoidal categories and the graphical
calculus; Frobenius algebras and their relation to operator algebras;
quantum and classical information channels as completely positive maps
between algebras; and 2-categories and their applications to quantum
computation.

This event is twinned with a conference in honour of Prakash
Panangaden on the occasion of his 60th birthday, to be held on the
dates 23--25 May 2014 at the University of Oxford:

  * http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/pf2014

Please circulate this announcement to those who might be interested,
and use the attached poster to advertise these events in your
institution.

Best wishes,
Bob Coecke and Jamie Vicary
Spring School Organizers
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