BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:Data::ICal 0.22 BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION:Sevag Gharibian\, Virginia Commonwealth University\n\n
\n For more information about Prof. Sevag Gharibian please see the following lin k:
\n\n http://computer-science.egr.vcu.edu/faculty/sevag-gharibian/
\n\n A central direction of research in condensed matter physics i s the determination of properties of local Hamiltonian systems. Unfortunat ely\, computing such properties is often intractable\, in that the complex matrices involved are typically of exponential size. Over the last 15 yea rs\, a burgeoning area of research at the intersection of condensed matter physics and computational complexity theory\, known as Quantum Hamiltonia n Complexity\, has made significant strides in characterizing the complexi ty of such computational tasks. In this talk\, we begin with a gentle intr oduction to the field of Quantum Hamiltonian Complexity. We then show that a central and basic task in condensed matter physics\, computing the expe cted value of a local observable against the ground state of a local Hamil tonian\, is an intractable task in the worst case (assuming standard compl exity theoretic conjectures)\, even if the observable acts on just a singl e qubit.
\n\n This talk is based on joint work with Xiaodi Wu (U Ore gon) and Justin Yirka (VCU).
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\n DTSTART:20151130T203000Z LOCATION:Physics Building\, Room 204 SUMMARY:The complexity of estimating local physical quantities END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR