ICTP Distinguished Conversation: Peter Zoller

Dirac Medallist Peter Zoller, professor at the University of Innsbruck and Scientific Director at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, is interviewed by Atish Dabholkar, Director of ICTP, and by Rosario Fazio, Head of the Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics (CMSP) section at ICTP. In this conversation they discuss quantum information theory and the evolution of quantum technologies, as well as the role that ICTP can play in training scientists on quantum computing. Peter Zoller was awarded the Dirac medal in 2006 "for innovative and prolific work in atomic physics, including seminal work proposing methods to use trapped ions for quantum computing and describing how to realize the Bose-Hubbard model and associated phase transitions in ultracold gases." The interview took place when Zoller visited ICTP in December 2022. On the same occasion, he gave a public colloquium on "Programming Quantum Simulators with Atoms and Ions", that can be found here on our Channel. 00:00 – Introduction 01:32 – Journey from theoretical physics to quantum computing 06:15 - Experimentalist involvement 08:35 - The DiVincenzo criteria 11:15 - Interesting times for quantum computing 12:18 - Opening up the field of optical lattices 16:38 – How many qubits? 18:49 – Optical lattice size 20:56 – Inventing reality with quantum simulators 22:42 – Creating a quantum simulator for Rydberg atoms or lattice gauge theory 27:01 - AdS CFT correspondence 28:14 – Contribution of quantum information to foundational quantum mechanics 30:51 – Hype around quantum computing 33:56 – Quantum sensing 35:41 – ICTP and educating scientists on quantum computing