Abstract:

Progress in optical quantum computation has started to slow in recent times due to the problems associated with probabilistic quantum gates, lack of good single photon sources and poor non-linear optical materials.  However, by looking at other applications besides a fully scalable quantum computer, we see that linear optics alone (beam splitters and phase shifters) is a powerful tool for simulation or emulation of interesting physical systems.  In this talk I will discuss some recent results from the University of Queensland's Quantum Technology Lab that employ purely linear optical schemes for this purpose.  In particular, I will focus the talk around single- and multi-particle quantum walks for investigating areas from condensed matter science to complexity theory.