Dirac Conversation: Peter Zoller

Dirac Medallist Peter Zoller, professor at the University of Innsbruck and Scientific Director at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, is interviewed by Atish Dabholkar, Director of ICTP, and by Rosario Fazio, Head of the Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics (CMSP) section at ICTP.
In this conversation they discuss quantum information theory and the evolution of quantum technologies, as well as the role that ICTP can play in training scientists on quantum computing.
Peter Zoller was awarded the Dirac medal in 2006 "for innovative and prolific work in atomic physics, including seminal work proposing methods to use trapped ions for quantum computing and describing how to realize the Bose-Hubbard model and associated phase transitions in ultracold gases."
The interview took place when Zoller visited ICTP in December 2022. On the same occasion, he gave a public colloquium on "Programming Quantum Simulators with Atoms and Ions", that can be found here on our Channel.
00:00 - Introduction
01:32 - Journey from theoretical physics to quantum computing
06:15 - Experimentalist involvement
08:35 - The DiVincenzo criteria
11:15 - Interesting times for quantum computing
12:18 - Opening up the field of optical lattices
16:38 - How many qubits?
18:49 - Optical lattice size
20:56 - Inventing reality with quantum simulators
22:42 - Creating a quantum simulator for Rydberg atoms or lattice gauge theory
27:01 - AdS CFT correspondence
28:14 - Contribution of quantum information to foundational quantum mechanics
30:51 - Hype around quantum computing
33:56 - Quantum sensing
35:41 - ICTP and educating scientists on quantum computing