Perimeter Institute Quantum Discussions

Topological phases in spin systems are exciting frontiers of research with intimate connections to quantum coding theory. However, there is a disconnection between quantum codes and the idea of topology, in the absence of geometry and physical realizability. Here, we introduce a toy model, in which quantum codes are constrained to not only have a local geometric description, but also have translation and scale symmetries. These additional physical constraints enable us to assign topologically invariant properties to geometric shapes of logical operators of the code.

Are Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity unrelated theories? Is Quantum Field Theory an additional theoretical layer over them? Where the quantization rules and the Plank constant come from? All these questions can find answer in the computational paradigm: "the universe is a huge quantum computer".

A recent breakthrough in quantum computing has been the realization that quantum computation can proceed solely through single-qubit measurements on an appropriate quantum state. One exciting prospect is that the ground or low-temperature thermal state of an interacting quantum many-body system can serve as such a resource state for quantum computation. The system would simply need to be cooled sufficiently and then subjected to local measurements.

TBA