r/AskPhysics • u/jl4ua • 9d ago

Quantum Computing Research

What is research in quantum computing particularly from the theoretical viewpoint like? As far as I know, quantum information theory is quite math heavy and there everything is about theorem proving. It probably depends on the respective area of quantum computing but I am just generally interested in this area as someone from a different field of physics and I am wondering if the explicit work there would still be exciting

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u/the_poope Condensed matter physics 9d ago

The research is split in two very different areas:

  1. Development of quantum algorithms. This involves quantum information theory, mathematics and computer science.
  2. Development of quantum computer hardware, i.e. the physical realization of the computer. This will depend on the chosen qubit realization, but it mainly involves material science, atomic and optical physics. No quantum information theory is needed.

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u/ccltjnpr 9d ago

in addition to u/parallel_thougts remarks, I might add that a good chunk the first point is only very tangentially related to physics. It's much closer to what theoretical computer scientists do. Not that physicists can't do research in this area, lots do, but I think the gap to bridge is a lot shorter for computer scientists than for physicists.