Quantum Physics and Algebraic Graph Theory

Series
Joint School of Mathematics and ACO Colloquium
Time
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 - 4:30pm for 2 hours
Location
Skiles 255
Speaker
Chris Godsil – University of Waterloo
Organizer
Robin Thomas

Please Note: Refreshments will be served at 4PM in Skiles 236.

The possibility of a quantum computer has lead to much new work in theoretical physics and, naturally enough, this work has raised many new mathematical problems. What is perhaps surprising is that it has lead to interesting problems in algebraic graph theory. For example, questions about the relative power of quantum computer and classical computers lead to questions about the chromatic number of certain graphs. In my talk I will discuss some of these problems, and the progress that has been made.