May 2020 Archive

This is an archive of what I found useful, interesting, or simply enjoyable in February 2020, with leftovers since November 2019.

Writings

Blog post

• Representations: morphisms and induction functor

Research papers

• Quantum supremacy in driven quantum many-body systems, Tangpanitanon et al 2002.11946
• Expressibility and trainability of parameterized analog quantum systems for machine learning applications, Tangpanitanon et al 2005.11222
• Optimal verification of stabilizer states, ND, Yun-Guang Han and Huangjun Zhu

Research

• Adaptive Quantum Computation, Constant Depth Quantum Circuits and Arthur-Merlin Games, Terhal and DiVincenzo 2004

What does it mean to simulate something?

One might naively expect that a subclass of IQP, which is mapped into an exactly solvable Ising model, is classically simulatable in the strong sense [18, 19], since the joint probability distribution of the output can be calculated efficiently. However, there are exponentially many instances of the measurement outcome, and hence an efficient calculation of the joint probability distribution of an output does not directly applied to an efficient weak simulation of IQP. For example, in Ref. [18], it 3is pointed out that there exists the case where the joint probability distribution is easily calculated but its marginals are rather hard to calculate. In order to construct an efficient weak simulation of IQP, we need the marginal distributions

Strong and weak simulation

Classical simulation of boson sampling

• Classical boson sampling algorithms with superior performance to near-term experiments, Neville et al Nat Phys 2017 (Exactly calculate for fully distinguishable photons and then approximate. Previously with the punny title “No imminent quantum supremacy by boson sampling”.)
• The Classical Complexity of Boson Sampling, Clifford and Clifford 2018 (Exact algorithm by sample each photon, then sample conditioned on previous photons. Have to calculate only 2 permanents in the worst case!)
• Efficient algorithm for boson sampling with partially distinguishable photons, Renema et al PRL 2018 (Calculate $O(n^{2k})$ permanents of $k\times k$ matrices. Constant error in $n$ the number of photons. What is $k$?)
  • Sampling of partially distinguishable bosons and the relation to the multidimensional permanent, Tichy PRA 2015
  • Boson-sampling with photons of arbitrary spectral structure, Rhodes PRA 2015
• Classical simulation of photonic linear optics with lost particles, Oszmaniec and Brod NJP 2018
• Classical simulability of noisy boson sampling, Renema, Shchesnovich and García-Patrón 1809.01953

• Classical simulation of linear optics subject to nonuniform losses, Oszmaniec and Brod 1906.06696 (Generalizes Clifford and Clifford 2018 to allow $n$ photons in one mode. (1) The convex hull of the orbit of $\ket{n,0,\dots,0}$ (2) The convex hull of the orbit of $

  n-r,\underbrace{1,\dots,1}_{r},0,\dots,0\rangle$)

• Classically simulating near-term partially-distinguishable and lossy boson sampling, Moylett, García-Patrón, Renema and Turner QST 2020 (Combine Renema and Clifford. Calculate 2 permanents of $k\times k$ matrices. Exponential error in $n$.)

• Faster classical Boson sampling, Clifford and Clifford 2005.04214

• How to generate random matrices from the classical compact groups, Mezzadri 2007

• The curious nonexistence of Gaussian 2-designs, Blume-Kohout and Turner 2014

  $\mathcal{D}$ is a (state) $t$-design if the average over $\mathcal{D}$ mimics average over the Haar measure: \(\frac{1}{|\mathcal{D}|}\sum_{\psi\in\mathcal{D}} \ketbra{\psi}{\psi}^{\otimes t} = \int_{\psi\in\mathrm{Haar}} \ketbra{\psi}{\psi}^{\otimes t}.\) Since the RHS commutes with $U^{\otimes t}$, it must be a sum of irrep projectors by Schur’s lemma. Since $\ketbra{\psi}{\psi}^{\otimes t}$ lies entirely in the symmetric subspace, it is the projector onto the symmetric subspace, hence the equivalent condition for $\mathcal{D}$ to be a $t$-design: \(\frac{1}{|\mathcal{D}|}\sum_{\psi\in\mathcal{D}} \ketbra{\psi}{\psi}^{\otimes t} = \frac{\Pi_{\Sym{t}}}{\Tr (\Pi_{\Sym{t}}) }\) Now for a different group $G$, the $G$-twirl (GCS) will still be a $t$-design if the symmetric subspace is a $G$-irrep because of Schur’s lemma.

• Analytic representations based on SU (1,1) coherent states and their applications, Brif, Vourdas and Mann 1996 (A weak resolution of the identity)
• Online Learning of Quantum States, Aaronson et al 2018
• Diagrammatic method of integration over the unitary group, with applications to quantum transport in mesoscopic systems, Brouwer and Beenakker 1996
• Weingarten Calculus and the IntHaar Package for Integrals over Compact Matrix Groups, Alejandro Ginory and Jongwon Kim
• An Invitation to the Weingarten Calculus, Collins, Matsumoto and Novak (Book in preparation)

Media

Links

• Freeman Dyson passed away at 96.
• How to annotate literally everything (Hypothes.is is the favorite choice. The mention that there is no good video annotation tool leads me to try Reclipped below.)
• There is No Algorithm for Truth, Tom Scott [Reclipped annotation]

• A child artist turned linguist turned mathematician Tadashi Tokieda, Quanta

  The biography came to a point where Landau, at the age of 54, has a very serious automobile accident. He’s in a coma for a month and a half. Then his son Igor comes to the hospital to check on his father, and he’s awake. It’s a tear-jerking scene. However, Landau doesn’t say, “Oh, I’m happy to be alive,” or “My son, Igor,” or anything like that. Instead, he says, “Igor, you’re here. What’s the indefinite integral of $dx$ over $\sin x$?”

  I decided, as a personal revenge on Landau, to study the subject up to the point where I could solve this exercise.

• “Tea if by sea, cha if by land” (The only two words for tea are Chinese, and they spread by different modes of transportation.)
• อุบัติเหตุบนถนนไทยจาก Big Data, ณภัทร จาตุศรีพิทักษ์
• Climate change irreversible due to warming oceans
• Climate models were mostly accurate. It’s just that predicting future carbon emissions is hard.
• The 2006 American “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms” legislation protects gun manufacturers from being sued for liability. But that doesn’t apply to Canadians.
• First interview with KyoAni president and lawyer after the arson
• Amyloid hypothesis cabal
• 3blue1brown was instrumental to the paper relating Grover’s search to the digits of $\pi$.
  • Playing Pool with $\ket{\psi}$: from Bouncing Billiards to Quantum Search, Adam R. Brown 1912.02207
• Will Any Crap We Put into Graphene Increase Its Electrocatalytic Effect?, Wang, Sofer and Pumera 2020
• Clearview

Federal and state law enforcement officers said that while they had only limited knowledge of how Clearview works and who is behind it, they had used its app to help solve shoplifting, identity theft, credit card fraud, murder and child sexual exploitation cases.

One reason that Clearview is catching on is that its service is unique. That’s because Facebook and other social media sites prohibit people from scraping users’ images — Clearview is violating the sites’ terms of service.

• A Lesswrong summary of Uri Alon’s An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits.
• Your genetic data is not private anymore. (A Florida federal judge approves a warrant to search a DNA database.)
• “Grandmaster level in StarCraft II using multi-agent reinforcement learning”, Vinyals et al 2019

• DeepMind’s blog on AlphaStar (blog; discussion)

• The universe is closed with 3.4 standard deviations.
• Designer babies, Economist
  • Good and bad journalism on embryo screening, Steve Hsu

• Eigenvectors from eigenvalues, Denton et al 1908.03795 [Quanta]

  This is a story of something that was rediscovered again and again, in different contexts. The modulus squared = quantum probability of every element of each eigenvector is complete determined by eigenvalues of submatrices. It’s kind of amazing that you can still discover something new in linear algebra in the 21st century.) [reddit thread where the physicists took the question to the internet] [Terence Tao’s blog]

• Good things happened in 2019
• The invented history of the ‘factory model’ of education
• Biologists, meet physicists Physicists, meet biologists, Nature articles (“When physicists say they do not understand something that you have said about biology, it’s possible that you do not understand that topic either.”)
• Epistemic statuses are lazy, and that’s a good thing, Devon Zuegel
• Virgo and LIGO installed the squeezed-light upgrade last year.
• New climate models sensitivity gives uncertainty
• An alternative argument for why women leave STEM, Karen Morenz
• John Wheeler losing a six-page document with nuclear secrets on a train led to a conspiracy theory which culminated in the infamous Oppenheimer trial.
• Making of Violet Evergarden, Under the Scope
• A recent perspective on invariant theory, Viswambhara Makam, IAS

Quantum

• “Tracking pollen with quantum dots”, Physics Today
• Geometry of quantum randomness (and supremacy), Greg Kuperberg
• “The Quantum Computing Party Hasn’t Even Started Yet: But your company may already be too late”, Chris Monroe (Quantum computing for the uninitiated)
• IBM vs Google’s different philosphies to building a quantum computer, MIT Technology Review
• Amazon braket provides access to D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti’s quantum computers
• Japan’s quantum roadmap (“Japan will aim to produce a 100-qubit machine in about 10 years, followed by a more powerful, full-fledged quantum computer by around 2039.”)
• India quantum funding
• The characterization of the power of entangled provers is now settled: All-powerful entangled provers can decide an undecidable problem.
  • Thomas Vidick, From operator algebras to complexity theory and back Notices of the AMS (2019)

• Green wall does not stop desertification but there are indigenous land use techniques that might.

• Neutral-atom path to quantum computing [A 2018 article]
• Robust encoding of a qubit in a molecule, Albert, Covey and Preskill 1911.00099 (Group-theoretic generalizations of the GKP code)

Musics

• Analysis of how often every Monogatari soundtrack is used
• Amadare no uta, Girls’ Last Tour
• Platina Jazz Uchiage Hanabi
• Lenny Lederman’s new Mega Man guitar covers
  • Jakob orbital elevator
  • Flame Stag
  • Toxic Seahourse

• Infinity Mijinion x Final Countdown {Europe}

• Chain, Back-On {Air Gear} [OP]
• Ima wo kakeru shoujo, Kano (now a virtual YouTuber)
• Utsusemi no kage, Kukui {Rozen Maiden: Ouvertüre} [ED]
• Winding Road, Man with a Mission {Golden Kamuy} [OP]
• Namae no nai kaibutsu, Egoist {Psycho-Pass} [ED1]

Pokemon Sword & Shield

• Marnie theme (JP: Mary), RichaadEB
• Gym leader battle, RichaadEB

Touhou

• Touhou Shinjutou ~ Hollow Song of Birds (fangame) Far-East El Dorado
• Touhou “I’ll Never Lose to Cock” OST (Touhou Fangamejam 4)
• RichaadEB
  • Pierrot of the Star-Spangled Banner
  • Emotional Skyscraper ~ Cosmic Mind

Books

Nonfiction

• วิปัสสนาระบบลัดสั้น สำหรับคนทั่วไป (pdf warning), พุทธทาสภิกขุ

Fiction

• Vinland Saga, Vol. 15-22 (Chapter 101-161), Yukimura Makoto
• Tengoku Daimakyou, Ishiguro Masakazu

Anime

December

• Zoku Owarimonogatari (6), Shaft {Nisio Isin} [Light novels] 2018
• Yuru Camp△ (12), C-Station {Afro} [Manga] 2018 (Notable episodes: 9,12, Notable moment: くぁwせdrftgyふじこlp)
• Serial Experiments Lain (13), Triangle Staff 1998 (Notable episodes: 5, 9-10) [TV Tropes shoutout] [reddit] <!– Gunsmith Cats (3-episode OVA), OLM {Kenichi Sonoda} [Manga] 1995-1996
• Shiki (22 episodes + 2 specials), Daume {Fuyumi Ono} [Novel] {Ryu Fujisaki} [Manga] 2010-2011–>
• Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (12), Studio DEEN {Haruko Kumota} [Manga] 2016
• Vinland Saga (24), Wit Studio {Makoto Yukimura} [Manga] 2019 (Notable episodes: 1-4 and 24 have movie quality. In term of directing, episode 14 (solo-directed by Atsushi Kobayashi) stands out.)

February

• Violet Evergarden (13+1), Kyoto Animation {Kana Akatsuki} [Light novel] 2018 notable episodes: 10; overall: 6/10
• Psycho-Pass (22). Production I.G. (Urobuchi Gen) 2012-2013 notable episodes: 11,17; overall 8/10

March

• Yojouhan shinwa taikei (The Tatami Galaxy) (11), Madhouse (Masaaki Yuasa) {Tomihiko Morimi} [novel] 2010 (Notable episode: 11)
• Kobayashi-san chi no Maid Dragon (13), Kyoto Animation {Coolkyousinnjya} [Manga] 2017 (Notable episode 12)
• Eizouken ni wa te wo dasu na! (12), Science SARU (Masaaki Yuasa) {Sumito Ouwara} [Manga] 2020 (Notable episode: 7)

May

• Seishun buta yarou wa Bunny Girl senpai no yume wo minai (Aobuta 13), CloverWorks 2018 {Kamoshida Hajime} [Light novel] (Same author as Sakurasou)