Thursday, March 9th, 2006
11:30am - 12:30pm, in Healey LL-1 Presentation Room 1

Michael Nathanson

Kenyon College

Entanglement and Local Discrimination of Quantum States

Abstract: Over the past 20 years, more and more physicists, computer scientists, and mathematicians have been attempting to exploit the strangeness of quantum mechanics in order to more effectively accomplish computing and information tasks. One of the most mysterious properties predicted by quantum mechanics is Entanglement, Einstein's "spooky action at a distance." This talk will present a brief overview of mathematical questions raised by entanglement, which involve tensor products of vector spaces. We will mention cryptographic protocols and quantum teleportation before examining in detail the question of local discrimination: If Alice and Bob s hare an entangled quantum system in one of k orthogonal quantum states, to what degree can they determine which state they possess using only local operations and classical communication? In the process of examining this topic, we will suggest the range of mathematical questions that are relevant to these issues.