Quantum Group

We study structural and foundational aspects of computer science and physics, and the connections between them, with applications in quantum information and computation, as well as in computational linguistics, computational logic and semantics. Here are listed some of our major activities, with the top five are of particular current interest:

• Quantum software, compilers, and circuit optimisation (Professor Aleks Kissinger, Dr Stefano Gogioso, Dr Quanlong Wang)
• Quantum natural language processing and compositional models of language meaning and cognition (Professor Bob Coecke, Dr Stefano Gogioso, Dr Konstantinos Meichanetzidis, Dr Dan Marsden)
• Causality in quantum theory and indefinite causal structures (Professor Jonathan Barrett, Professor Aleks Kissinger, Professor Bob Coecke, Professor Giulio Chiribella)
• Contextual semantics, with applications to quantum information and foundations, to databases, and natural language (Professor Samson Abramsky, Dr Luca Reggio)
• Diagrammatic reasoning and the ZX-calculus (Professor Bob Coecke, Professor Aleks Kissinger, Dr Quanlong Wang)
• Quantum Machine Learning (Professor Bob Coecke, Dr Stefano Gogioso, Dr Konstantinos Meichanetzidis)
• Resource theories (Professor Bob Coecke, Professor Giulio Chiribella, Dr Dan Marsden)
• Categorical quantum mechanics (Professor Bob Coecke, Professor Aleks Kissinger, Dr Stefano Gogioso, Professor Samson Abramsky)
• Automated reasoning for graphical theories and quantum computation (Professor Aleks Kissinger)
• Generalised probabilistic models for quantum computation and quantum foundations (Professor Jonathan Barrett)
• Compositional models of cognition (Professor Bob Coecke , Dr Dan Marsden)
• Categorical perspectives on quantum logic (Professor Bob Coecke)
• Semantics of computation, including game semantics for dependent type theories, and semantics of intensional computation (Professor Samson Abramsky)
• Quantum cryptography (Professor Jonathan Barrett)

Click here to access the extensive Oxford Quantum Talk Archive, our video archive of research talks; enquiries can be sent to Destiny Chen. You can also view our group calendar.

Joining the group

If you'd like more information about joining the group, as a postdoctoral researcher or as a DPhil student, please contact a faculty member listed below. We have supported postdoctoral fellowship applications for strong applicants. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Royal Society have annual postdoctoral fellowship competitions, some of which are open to non-British nationals. The department also awards DPhil scholarships each year to the strongest EU (DTA) and overseas (Clarendon) applicants.

If you're already doing a Masters degree in Oxford and might be interested in doing your project with a member of our group, please get in touch as soon as possible with one of the group members listed above.

If you're an undergraduate and would like to learn more about the sorts of things we work on, have a look at the MSc in Mathematics and the Foundations of Computer Science.

Mailing lists

We run an international quantum foundations mailing list. To subscribe, send a blank email to quantum-foundations-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk. We also have a separate list to announce local events related to our group's activities; to subscribe, send a blank email to quantum-announcements-join@cs.ox.ac.uk.

Funding

Members of the group are pleased to receive funding from the following sources:

Sources	Projects
	Resources and co-resources: a junction between semantics and descriptive complexity
	The Quantum Information Structure of Spacetime Categorical unification: where foundational physics, natural language and rational processes meet
	Quantum software, compilers, and circuit optimisation Automating quantum circuit transformations for optimisation and fault-tolerance

Selected Publications

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• External traced monoidal categories

  Nick Hu

  Master's Thesis 2019.

  Details about External traced monoidal categories | BibTeX data for External traced monoidal categories | Download  (pdf) of External traced monoidal categories

• Contextuality and noncommutative geometry in quantum mechanics

  Nadish de Silva and Rui Soares Barbosa

  In Communications in Mathematical Physics. Vol. 365. No. 2. Pages 375–429. 2019.

  Earlier partial version (“Partial and total ideals of von Neumann algebras”) available as arXiv:1408.1172 [math.OA]

  Details about Contextuality and noncommutative geometry in quantum mechanics | BibTeX data for Contextuality and noncommutative geometry in quantum mechanics | DOI (10.1007/s00220-018-3222-9)

• Minimum quantum resources for strong non−locality

  Samson Abramsky‚ Rui Soares Barbosa‚ Giovanni Carù‚ Nadish de Silva‚ Kohei Kishida and Shane Mansfield

  In Mark M. Wilde, editor, Proceedings of 12th Conference on the Theory of Quantum Computation‚ Communication and Cryptography (TQC 2017). Vol. 73 of Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs). Pages 9:1–9:20. Dagstuhl‚ Germany. 2018. Schloss Dagstuhl–Leibniz−Zentrum fuer Informatik.

  Accepted for communication at 14th International Conference on Quantum Physics and Logic (QPL 2017); E−print: arXiv:1705.09312 [quant−ph]

  Details about Minimum quantum resources for strong non−locality | BibTeX data for Minimum quantum resources for strong non−locality | DOI (10.4230/LIPIcs.TQC.2017.9) | Link to Minimum quantum resources for strong non−locality