My experience in Qiskit Global Summer School being a graduate student in physics
I have been involved in quantum mechanics in some way or another for almost four years by now. I will try and highlight the most important moments in this journey to obtain the context of my perspective in the Qiskit summer school.
Quantum automaton
In my bachelor’s degree in physics, I worked in an educational project (“Spin simulation in the Stern-Gerlach experiment using a quantum automaton”) where I teamed up with an electrical engineer. We presented a simulation of the spin in the Stern-Gerlach experiment using the quantum automaton model implemented in a Vex robot with an internal state represented by qubits and changes of states dependent on the signals of external sensors with which measurements and actions are carried out. In this way, the probabilistic nature of the quantum and the bases of the internal functioning of a quantum processor are observed in a simple, practical, and visual way.
Stochastic electrodynamics
In my bachelor’s degree thesis, “Numerical simulation of the harmonic oscillator in stochastic electrodynamics “. We solved Newton’s equation for a charged particle with a harmonic oscillator potential interacting with stochastic radiation independent of temperature. This radiation was taken as a sum of plane waves with random amplitudes, which according to stochastic electrodynamics (SED) when interacting with matter gives rise to quantum phenomena. SED is a variation of classical electrodynamics with a change in the homogeneous solution of Maxwell’s equations to include classical electromagnetic radiation from a vacuum. SED is not an interpretation of quantum mechanics, it is a background theory of it.
Formal courses
In my master’s degree, I took four formal quantum related courses, the first ones were Quantum mechanics I and II, with a standard syllabus from basic concepts to more advanced ones such as an introduction to quantum electrodynamics. The other two are the more specialized ones, Quantum Information and Quantum correlation. In quantum information, we covered pretty much the same as in the Qiskit summer school but in four months, which is pretty impressive for a summer school of two weeks. In quantum correlation, we studied ways to measure entanglement, other quantum correlation and the effects of decoherence.
Quantum biology
Finally, right now I’m on the process of finishing my master’s degree thesis on the area of quantum biology. We work with QuTiP (open-source software for simulating the dynamics of open quantum systems in Python). I Studied the Quantum fisher and skew information as a measure of the quantum correlation in the radical pair mechanism of the avian compass model. The radical pair mechanism is used in birds to detect Earth’s magnetic field to obtain directional information, a capability called magnetoreception.
Qiskit Global Summer School
Qiskit is an open-source framework for working with quantum computers at the level of circuits, pulses, and algorithms. The Qiskit Global Summer School was hosted virtually within two weeks of intense lectures and labs from July 20–31. The curriculum consisted of 3 hour long lectures every day, accompanied by a lab, starting with the definition of Qubits and quantum states, and ending with Superconducting Qubits and Quantum Chemistr
When the Qiskit summer school was announced I was very excited, I had been trying to get involved with Qiskit but failed to even start. This summer school was the perfect place to change that. I was one of the lucky 2000 that got access to the lectures and labs. Also, we had a discord where we could interact with mentors and other students.
Lectures and labs
The lectures were fast and compact, in the first two lectures, “Qubits and Quantum States, Quantum Circuits, Measurements” and “Writing and Running Quantum Programs”, I had seen before almost all concepts revised but the review was perfect to refresh the memory and start the school. And the lecturer, Elisa Bäumer (she made a medium post about the lectures here), in my opinion, did an amazing work introducing the key concepts of quantum computing to the newcomers.
The next two lectures, “Shor’s Algorithm I: Understanding Quantum Fourier Transform, Quantum Phase Estimation” and “Shor’s algorithm II: From Factoring to Period-Finding, Writing the Quantum Program” was my second favorite, the lecturer, Abraham Asfaw has a very clear and smooth way of teaching. I had encountered the Quantum Fourier Transform and Quantum Phase Estimation in my formal course of quantum information, but I didn’t understand it until these two lectures. At this point, we had made four labs, the first one being more difficult because of my inexperience with Qiskit. The other three labs were less difficult and the videos of lab instructions that accompanied each one helped a lot.
In the lecture by James Wootton, “Quantum Error Correction using Repetition Codes” , I had barely seen the concepts before, and even though the lecturer did his best, I found the ideas of quantum error correction very useful but boring, at least for me. The good thing is that I discovered that this area is not the one I would like to work in the future.
The lectures by Zlatko Minev, “Superconducting Qubits I: Quantizing a Harmonic Oscillator, Josephson Junctions” and “Superconducting Qubits II: Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics, Readout and Calibration Methods” were by far my favorites. The concept of superconducting qubits had been mentioned in a couple of classes that I took but I had never understood it until now. Zlatko Minev did an amazing work explaining the theory and application of the concepts but in the labs of this section where we had to used Qiskit pulse, I got lost even with the help of the lab’s instructions. This part I’m still working on to understand the implementation in Qiskit.
“Quantum Chemistry I: Obtaining the Qubit Hamiltonian for H2 and LiH” and “Quantum Chemistry II: Finding the Ground States of H2 and LiH Using a Variational Quantum Eigensolver” were the last two lectures by Abhinav Kandala and Antonio Mezzacapo. Obtaining the Qubit Hamiltonian for H2 and using a Variational Quantum Eigensolver was very fun and cleared a lot of my doubts in the implementation of quantum computing in chemistry. In the past I had heard that quantum computing worked exceptionally well in chemistry and these two lectures help me understood the reasoning behind it.
Working with Qiskit in the labs was so satisfactory. I have been studying the theoretical aspects of quantum information for a couple of years now, and being able to apply that knowledge and get access to a real quantum computer through the IBM Quantum Experience has been the most wonderful experience of this year.
Interactions with other students
As a good example of the stereotype of the physicist, I’m not very good at socializing. We had at our disposal the discord channels but I didn’t use them that much. I found the number of messages overwhelming but at least, sometimes, I found an interesting discussion that helped me understand some concepts of the lecturers. I tried to make a study group but failed to keep it alive, so for the most part of the school I worked alone.
In my opinion having so many students (I believe that this time where more than 3000) can become chaotic and not give proper attention to all of them. I would like to see the next editions with fewer students and perhaps open the school two times per year to have more reaching
Conclusion
In the end, this school was a perfect place to start getting involved in the Qiskit community. I discovered the Slack channel of Qiskit were you can interact with all the people working in Qiskit, the tutorials in Github, and the different documentation that exists. Now with the help of the introduction given in this summer school, I can start working on my ideas and start contributing to Qiskit. I recommend this summer school to anyone interested in quantum computing.
