Lecturer: Aharon Brodutch
Abstract: 
 Quantum theory has been incredibly successful at explaining known phenomena and making new predictions that have led to  some of the most important scientific and technological breakthroughs in the past century. Quantum computers are arguably the boldest prediction of the theory, but the level of control required to build them is extremely challenging. The requirements for building universal fault tolerant quantum computers (i.e computers that can run any quantum algorithm with high accuracy) are far beyond current capabilities, but less powerful (intermediate) quantum machines are already available, with some accessible online.  The minimal requirements for such intermediate machines to significantly outperform ordinary (classical) computers is currently an open area of research.   One approach to study the capabilities of intermediate quantum machines, is to study how small subsystems become correlated (and entangled) during a computation. I will provide an overview of work in this direction with some surprising results on the possible role of quantum entanglement. These results provide new insights into quantum theory and quantum technology.