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Quantum Physics and Logic 2019: CALL FOR PAPERS

Posted on 21 February, 2019 by | Leave a comment

CALL FOR PAPERS

16th International Conference on
Quantum Physics and Logic
(QPL 2019)

June 10-14, 2019
Chapman University, Orange,
California, USA

https://qpl2019.org

* * *

The 16th International Conference on Quantum Physics and Logic
(QPL 2019) will take place at Chapman University June 10-14, 2019.

The conference brings together researchers working on mathematical
foundations of quantum physics, quantum computing, and related areas,
with a focus on structural perspectives and the use of logical tools,
ordered algebraic and category-theoretic structures, formal languages,
semantical methods, and other computer science techniques applied to
the study of physical behaviour in general. Work that applies
structures and methods inspired by quantum theory to other fields
(including computer science) is also welcome.

IMPORTANT DATES

April 1: abstract submission
April 7: paper submission
April 30: application for student support
May 12: notification of authors
May 17: early registration deadline
May 24: final papers ready
June 10-14: conference

INVITED SPEAKERS

John Baez (UC Riverside)
Anna Pappa (University College London)
Joel Wallman (University of Waterloo)

INVITED TUTORIALS

Ana Belen Sainz (Perimeter Institute)
Quanlong Wang (University of Oxford)

SUBMISSIONS

Prospective speakers are invited to submit one (or more) of the
following:

– Original contributions consist of a 5-12 page extended abstract
that provides sufficient evidence of results of genuine interest
and enough detail to allow the program committee to assess the
merits of the work. Submission of substantial albeit partial
results of work in progress is encouraged.

– Extended abstracts describing work submitted/published elsewhere
will also be considered, provided the work is recent and relevant
to the conference. These consist of a 3 page description and should
include a link to a separate published paper or preprint.

The conference proceedings will be published in Electronic
Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science (EPTCS) after the
conference. Only “original contributions” are eligible to be
published in the proceedings.

Submissions should be prepared using LaTeX, and must be submitted in
PDF format. Use of the EPTCS style is encouraged. Submission is done
via EasyChair:

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=qpl2019

There will be an award for the best student paper at the discretion
of the programme committee. Papers eligible for the award are those
where all the authors are students at the time of submission.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Bob Coecke (co-chair, University of Oxford)
Matthew Leifer (co-chair, Chapman University)
Miriam Backens (University of Oxford)
Giulio Chiribella (University of Oxford)
Stefano Gogioso (University of Oxford)
John Harding (New Mexico State University)
Chris Heunen (The University of Edinburgh)
Matthew Hoban (University of Oxford)
Dominic Horsman (University of Durham)
Kohei Kishida (Dalhousie University)
Aleks Kissinger (Radboud University)
Joachim Kock (UAB)
Ravi Kunjwal (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)
Martha Lewis (University of Amsterdam)
Dan Marsden (University of Oxford)
David Moore (Pictet Asset Management)
Michael Moortgat (Utrecht University)
Daniel Oi (University of Strathclyde)
Ognyan Oreshkov (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Anna Pappa (University College London)
Dusko Pavlovic (University of Hawaii)
Simon Perdrix (CNRS, Laboratoire d’Informatique de Grenoble, University of Grenoble)
Neil Ross (Dalhousie University)
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh (Queen Mary University of London)
Ana Belén Sainz (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)
Peter Selinger (Dalhousie University)
Sonja Smets (University of Amsterdam)
Pawel Sobocinski (University of Southampton)
Robert Spekkens (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)
Isar Stubbe (Université du Littoral)
Benoît Valiron (LRI – CentraleSupelec, Univ. Paris Saclay)
Jamie Vicary (University of Oxford)
Alexander Wilce (Susquehanna University)
Mingsheng Ying (University of Technology, Sydney)
Margherita Zorzi (University of Verona)
Magdalena Anna Zych (The University of Queensland)

STEERING COMMITTEE

Bob Coecke (University of Oxford)
Prakash Panangaden (McGill University)
Peter Selinger (Dalhousie University)

LOCAL ORGANIZERS

Lorenzo Catani (Chapman University)
Justin Dressel (Chapman University)
Matthew Leifer (Chapman University)
Drew Moshier (Chapman University)

For further information, please contact qpl2019@easychair.org.

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Conference Announcement QPL 2019

Posted on 21 December, 2018 by | Leave a comment

The 16th International Conference on Quantum Physics and Logic (QPL 2019)

June 10-14 2019

Chapman University, Orange, California

https://qpl2019.org

The 16th International Conference on Quantum Physics and Logic (QPL 2019) will take place at Chapman University June 10-14, 2019. The conference brings together researchers working on mathematical foundations of quantum physics, quantum computing, and related areas, with a focus on structural perspectives and the use of logical tools, ordered algebraic and category-theoretic structures, formal languages, semantical methods, and other computer science techniques applied to the study of physical behaviour in general. Work that applies structures and methods inspired by quantum theory to other fields (including computer science) is also welcome.

A call for papers and registration details will follow in a few weeks and will also be posted on the conference website at https://qpl2019.org

STEERING COMMITTEE

  • Bob Coecke (University of Oxford)
  • Prakash Panangaden (McGill University)
  • Peter Selinger (Dalhousie University)

LOCAL ORGANIZERS

  • Matthew Leifer (Chapman University)
  • Lorenzo Catani (Chapman University)
  • Justin Dressel (Chapman University)
  • Drew Moshier (Chapman University)

For further information, please contact qpl2019@easychair.org.

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AAV Anniversary Conference – Celebrating 30 Years of Weak Values

Posted on 18 January, 2018 by | Leave a comment

We cordially invite you to join us for a celebratory conference commemorating the 30th anniversary of the first paper on weak values by Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman. The conference will be held at Chapman University from March 1st – 2nd, immediately to be followed by another Chapman conference on Quantum Simulation and Quantum Walks from March 3rd – 4th, which you are, of course, very welcome to attend.

Please visit our website to register, make hotel reservations, and find instructions for submitting a poster abstract: https://www.chapman.edu/research/institutes-and-centers/quantum-studies/aav.aspx

Also, note that the March Meeting of the American Physical Society takes place the following week (March 5-9) in Los Angeles, CA, which is near Chapman University, providing you with a triple reason to come visit with us in sunny Southern California.

Further details about the aims of the conference follow below.

The concept of a weak value, first formulated by Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman in their 1988 PRL paper “How the result of a measurement of a component of a spin-1/2 particle can turn out to be 100” (PRL 60:1351, 1988) has attracted widespread attention, which has only increased in recent years. It has given rise to a lot of interesting thought experiments, many of which are now being implemented in the lab. The mathematical formalism of weak values has also given rise to the related concept of superoscillations, which have been of great interest to mathematical physicists.

In recent years anomalous weak values have been shown to be related to quantum contextuality, and have attracted increasing attention for their possible application to quantum metrology, known as “weak value amplification”.

This symposium will survey the development of weak values, and explore the current debates about their foundational significance and practical applications.

Conference Organizing Committee:

Jeff Tollaksen
Matthew Leifer
Justin Dressel
Cristian Bourgeois

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Quantum Foundations at the APS March Meeting

Posted on 19 October, 2017 by | Leave a comment

The March Meeting of the American Physical Society is taking place March 5-9 2017 in Los Angeles. There will be sessions on Quantum Foundations, Quantum Resource Theories, and Quantum Thermodynamics. You can submit an abstract for a contributed talk at http://www.aps.org/meetings/march/. The deadline is November 3 at 11:59pm EST.

The APS March Meeting is a great opportunity to advertise recent work in quantum foundations to the wider physics community. I hope you will consider contributing a talk so that we can showcase our research in the strongest possible way.

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Foundations Mailing Lists

Posted on 7 December, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Bob Coecke has recently set up an email mailing list for announcements in the foundations of quantum theory (conference announcements, job postings and the like). You can subscribe by sending a blank email to quantum-foundations-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk. The mailing list is moderated so you will not get inundated by messages from cranks.

On a similar note, I thought I would mention the philosophy of physics mailing list, which has been going for about seven years and also often features announcements that are relevant to the foundations of quantum theory. Obviously, the focus is more on the philosophy side, but I have often heard about interesting conferences and workshops via this list.

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Job/Course/Conference Announcements

Posted on 26 November, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Here are a few announcements that have arrived in my inbox in the past few days.

Perimeter Scholars International

Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI), in partnership with the University of Waterloo, welcomes applications to the Master’s level course, Perimeter Scholars International (PSI). Exceptional students with an undergraduate honours degree in Physics, Math, Engineering or Computer Science are encouraged to apply. Students must have a minimum of 3 upper level undergraduate or graduate courses in physics. PSI recruits a diverse group of students and especially encourages applications from qualified women candidates. The due date for applications to PSI is February 1st, 2011. Complete details are available at www.perimeterscholars.org.

Foundations Postdocs

Also a reminder that it is currently postdoc hiring season at Perimeter Institute. Although, the deadline for applications has passed, they will always consider applications from qualified candidates if not all positions have been filled. Anyone looking for a postdoc in quantum foundations should definitely apply. In fact, if you are looking for a foundations job and you have not applied to PI then you must be quite mad, since there are not a lot of foundations positions in physics to be had elsewhere. Details are here.

Quantum Interactions

I will admit that this next conference announcement is a little leftfield, but some of the areas it covers are very interesting and worthwhile in my opinion, particularly the biological and artificial intelligence applications.

————————–

CALL FOR PAPERS

————————–

The Fifth International Symposium on Quantum Interaction (QI’2010, http://www.rgu.ac.uk/qi2011), 27-29 June 2010, Aberdeen, United Kingdom.

Quantum Interaction (QI) is an emerging field which is applying quantum theory (QT) to domains such as artificial intelligence, human language, cognition, information retrieval, biology, political science, economics, organisations and social interaction.

After highly successful previous meetings (QI’2007 at Stanford, QI’2008 at Oxford, QI’2009 at Saarbruecken, QI’2010 at Washington DC), the Fifth International Quantum Interaction Symposium will take place in Aberdeen, UK from 27 to 29 June 2011.

This symposium will bring together researchers interested in how QT addresses problems in non-quantum domains. QI’2011 will also include a half day tutorial session on 26 June 2011, with a number of leading researchers delivering tutorial on the foundations of QT, the application of QT to human cognition and decision making, and QT inspired semantic information processing.

***Call for Papers***

We are seeking submission of high-quality and original research papers that have not been previously published and are not under review for another conference or journal. Papers should address one or more of the following broad content areas, but not limited to:

– Artificial Intelligence (Logic, planning, agents and multi-agent systems)

– Biological or Complex Systems

– Cognition and Brain (memory, cognitive processes, neural networks, consciousness)

– Decision Theory (political, psychological, cultural, organisational, social sciences)

– Finance and Economics (decision-making, mergers, corporate cultures)

– Information Processing and Retrieval

– Language and Linguistics

The post-conference proceedings of QI’2011 will be published by Springer in its Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series. Authors will be required to submit a final version 14 days after the conference to reflect the comments made at the conference. We will also consider organizing a special issue for a suitable journal to publish selected best papers.

***Important Dates***

28th March 2011: Abstract submission deadline

1st April 2011: Paper submission deadline

1st May 2011: Notification of acceptance

1st June 2011: Camera-Ready Copy

26th June 2011: Tutorial Session

27th – 29th June 2011: Conference

***Submission***

Authors are invited to submit research papers up to 12 pages. All submissions should be prepared in English using the LNCS template, which can be downloaded from http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0.

Please submit online at:

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=qi2011

***Organization***

Steering Committee:

Peter Bruza (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)

William Lawless (Paine College, USA)

Keith van Rijsbergen (University of Glasgow, UK)

Donald Sofge (Naval Research Laboratory, USA)

Dominic Widdows (Google, USA)

General Chair:

Dawei Song (Robert Gordon University, UK)

Programme Committee Chair:

Massimo Melucci (University of Padua, Italy)

Publicity Chair:

Sachi Arafat (University of Glasgow, UK)

Proceedings Chair:

Ingo Frommholz (University of Glasgow, UK)

Local Organization co-Chairs:

Jun Wang and Peng Zhang (Robert Gordon University, UK)

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Quantum Foundations Meetings

Posted on 11 November, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Prompted in part by the Quantum Pontiff’s post about the APS March meeting, I thought it would be a good idea to post one of my extremely irregular lists of interesting conferences about the foundations of quantum theory that are coming up. A lot of my usual sources for this sort of information have become defunct in the couple of years I was away from work, so if anyone knows of any other interesting meetings then please post them in the comments.

  • March 21st-25th 2011: APS March Meeting (Dallas, Texas) – Includes a special session on Quantum Information For Quantum Foundations. Abstract submission deadline Nov. 19th.
  • April 29th-May 1st 2011: New Directions in the Foundations of Physics (Washington DC) – Always one of the highlights of the foundations calendar, but invite only.
  • May 2nd-6th 2011: 5th Feynman Festival (Brazil) – Includes foundations of quantum theory as one of its topics, but likely there will be more quantum information/computation talks. Registration deadline Feb. 1st, Abstract submission deadline Feb. 15th.
  • July 25th-30th 2011: Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics (Prague, Czech Republic) – Not strictly a quantum foundations conference, but there are a few foundations speakers and foundations of thermodynamics is interesting to many quantum foundations people.

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von Neumann celebrations

Posted on 6 October, 2007 by | 1 comment

I think I might have mentioned before that von Neumann is a bit of a hero of mine.  I transferred my affections from Feynman as soon as I was old enough to realize how much exaggeration must be involved in the “Surely you’re joking” stories.  Sure, von Neumann may have made a mistake about hidden variable theories, but we are talking about a guy who gave us the first rigorous formulation of quantum theory, made major contributions to game theory and invented the modern computer architecture, so I’m willing to cut him some slack on that point.

Anyway, I thought I’d just mention the workshop at Princeton to mark 50 years since von Neumann’s death and 75 years since the publication of his book on quantum theory.  Looks like there were many interesting talks.

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Foundations Summer School: Apply Now!

Posted on 12 March, 2007 by | 6 comments

Just a short note to let you know that the application form for the Perimeter Institute Quantum Foundations Summer School is now available online from here. The application deadline is 20th May.

Update: I should have mentioned that for successful applicants who are grad students all expenses will be paid by Perimeter. That should make it easier to persuade your advisor to let you go. You don’t have to be an expert on foundations and we are hoping that students studying a wide variety of areas of Physics will attend.

Update 2: Whether non-students, e.g. postdocs, will be allowed to attend is still an open question. I’m waiting to hear more about this from the organizers. Clearly, the priority for a summer school has to be grad students, so I would speculate that it will depend on the number and quality of applications that we get. I’m just guessing at the moment though and I’ll post another update once I hear the official word.

Update 3: I have just heard that there will be up to 10 places will be made available at the summer school for postdocs and junior faculty.

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Foundations at APS, take 2

Posted on 6 March, 2007 by | 3 comments

It doesn’t seem that a year has gone by since I wrote about the first sessions on quantum foundations organized by the topical group on quantum information, concepts and computation at the APS March meeting. Nevertheless it has, and I am here in Denver after possibly the longest day of continuous sitting through talks in my life. I arrived at 8am to chair the session on Quantum Limited Measurements, which was interesting, but readers of this blog won’t want to hear about such practical matters, so instead I’ll spill the beans on the two foundations sessions that followed.

In the first foundations session, things got off to a good start with Rob Spekkens as the invited speaker explaining to us once again why quantum states are states of knowledge. OK, I’m biased because he’s a collaborator, but he did throw us a new tidbit on how to make an analog of the Elitzur Vaidman bomb experiment in his toy theory by constructing a version for field theory.

Next, there was a talk by some complete crackpot called Matt Leifer. He talked about this.

Frank Schroeck gave an overview of his formulation of quantum mechanics on phase space, which did pique my interest, but 10 minutes was really too short to do it justice. Someday I’ll read his book.

Chris Fuchs gave a talk which was surprisingly not the same as his usual quantum Bayesian propaganda speech. It contained some new results about Symmetric Informationally Complete POVMs, including the fact that the states the POVM elements are proportional to are minimum uncertainty states with respect to mutually unbiased bases. This should be hitting an arXiv near you very soon.

Caslav Brukner talked about his recent work on the emergence of classicality via coarse graining. I’ve mentioned it before on this blog, and it’s definitely a topic I’m becoming much more interested in.

Later on, Jeff Tollaksen talked about generalizing a theorem proved by Rob Spekkens and myself about pre- and post-selected quantum systems to the case of weak measurements. I’m not sure I agree with the particular spin he gives on it, especially his idea of “quantum contextuality”, but you can decide for yourself by reading this.

Jan-Ake Larrson gave a very comprehensible talk about a “loophole” (he prefers the term “experimental problem”) in Bell inequality tests to do with coincidence times of photon detection. You can deal with it by having a detection efficiency just a few percent higher than that needed to overcome the detection loophole. Read all about it here.

Most of the rest of the talks in this session were more quantum information oriented, but I suppose you can argue they were at the foundational end of quantum information. Animesh Datta talked about the role of entanglement in the Knill-Laflamme model of quantum computation with one pure qubit, Anil Shaji talked about using easily computable entanglement measures to put bounds on those that aren’t so easy to compute and finally Ian Durham made some interesting observations about the connections between entropy, information and Bell inequalities.

The second foundations session was more of a mixed bag, but let me just mention a couple of the talks that appealed to me. Marcello Sarandy Alioscia Hamma talked about generalizing the quantum adiabatic theorem to open systems, where you don’t necessarily have a Hamiltonian with well-defined eigenstates to talk about and Kicheon Kang talked about a proposal for a quantum eraser experiment with electrons.

On Tuesday, Bill Wootters won a prize for best research at an undergraduate teaching college. He gave a great talk about his discrete Wigner functions, which included some new stuff about minumum uncertainty states and analogs of coherent states.

That’s pretty much it for the foundations talks at APS this year. It’s all quantum information from here on in. That is unless you count Zeilinger, who is talking on Thursday. He’s supposed to be talking about quantum cryptography, but perhaps he will say something about the more foundationy experiments going on in his lab as well.

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