Alicia Kollár

New Design Packs Two Qubits into One Superconducting Junction

Graphs May Prove Key in Search for Holy Grail of Quantum Error Correction

In February 2019, JQI Fellow Alicia Kollár, who is also an assistant professor of physics at UMD, bumped into Adrian Chapman, then a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney, at a quantum information conference. Although the two came from very different scientific backgrounds, they quickly discovered that their research had a surprising commonality. They both shared an interest in graph theory, a field of math that deals with points and the connections between them. Their ensuing collaboration resulted in a new tool that aids in the search for new quantum error correction schemes—including the Holy Grail of self-correcting quantum error correction. They published their findings recently in the journal Physical Review X Quantum.

Recent Physics Grad Sees Many Roads Ahead

As Jeffrey Wack walked across the graduation stage in May 2022, he carried with him a lot of uncertainty about where to go next. His trepidation came from his voracious curiosity for a broad range of things, primarily within physics and math—the subjects of his two degrees—but also from his interests in teaching, outreach and music. The prospect of having to pick just one path forward felt confining to Wack. But that same curiosity served him extremely well during his time at the University of Maryland, and it left him with many opportunities for next steps.