05/06/2015, 16:15 — 17:15 — Room P3.10, Mathematics Building
Louis H. Kauffman, U. Illinois at Chicago
Majorana Fermions and Topological Quantum Computing
This talk will discuss how the concept of a Majorana Fermion, a particle that is its own anti-particle is at the basis of the presently known models for topological quantum computing. These models include the Fibonacci Model related to the quantum Hall effect and based on properties of the Jones polynomial and other models related to braid group representations that arise from Clifford algebras. This talk will be self-contained and will discuss the concepts of quantum computing, quantum algorithms and how topology and braid group representations are related to fundamental physics.