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Guifré Vidal

Appointment

Associate Fellow

Quantum Information Science

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About

Guifré Vidal is a physicist whose research focuses on developing efficient methods, known as tensor networks, to simulate quantum many-body systems on a classical computer.

His tensor network proposals include the multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA).

MERA uses concepts and tools from quantum information and computation (such as quantum entanglement and quantum circuits) to implement a modern version of Wilson’s renormalization group flow on quantum spin chains. Originally developed to study quantum critical systems, over the years MERA has also found applications on a broader range of disciplines, from statistical mechanics to error correction, from quantum chemistry to applied mathematics, from quantum gravity and holography to machine learning.

Awards

  • Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (1999-2001), European Union
  • Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Fellowship (2003-2005), United States of America
  • Federation Fellowship (2006-2011), Australian Research Council, Australia
  • Distinguished Research Chair (2010-2011), Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada

Relevant Publications

  • G. Vidal, J.I. Latorre, E. Rico, A. Kitaev. “Entanglement in quantum critical phenomena.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 (22), 227902 (2003), quant-ph/0211074

  • G. Vidal. “Efficient classical simulation of slightly entangled quantum computations.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 147902 (2003), quant-ph/0301063

  • G. Vidal. “Entanglement renormalization.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 220405 (2007), cond-mat/0512165

  • G. Vidal. “Class of quantum many-body states that can be efficiently simulated.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 101,110501 (2008), arxiv: quant-ph/0610099

  • G. Evenbly, G. Vidal. “Tensor Network Renormalization.” Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 180405 (2015), arXiv:1412.0732

Institution

Google

Education

  • PhD (Physics) University of Barcelona, 1999
  • BSc (Physics) University of Barcelona, 1996

Country

Canada

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