Theoretical Nanophysics
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Job openings

joinWe are always looking for highly motivated Postdocs and PhD students to join our research group. Potential candidates with an excellent analytical background in Quantum Physics or strong numerical skills (DMRG or quantum chemical methods) are more than welcomed to contact us to discuss possible projects and funding opportunities.

 

Open call (deadline 11th April 2024):

We are offering 1 PhD & 1 postdoctoral position to well-qualified, highly motivated, and dynamic early-career scientists who wish to enhance their scientific career in a stimulating top environment. The successful candidates will be working on one (or more) of the following potentially groundbreaking long-term research programmes (see descriptions below):

P1: Tensor network methods for quantum chemistry

P2: Foundation of quantum computing: fermionic systems

P3: Quantum information theory for fermions

P4: Foundation of functional theories & N-representability problem

The offered positions are related to the cluster of excellence ''Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology’’ https://www.mcqst.de/about/members/christian-schilling.html and are funded through the Munich Quantum Valley https://www.munich-quantum-valley.de/ and the German research foundation https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/414324924?language=en

The postdoc position is initially for 2 years.

Application deadline: 3rd April 2024

Starting date: flexible

 

Applications as single pdf-document, including

  • Cover letter
  • CV, list of publications and contact details of two referees
  • postdoc candidates: future research plans (max. 2 pages) and (link to) PhD thesis
  • PhD candidate: academic transcripts (GPA(scale up to 4) ≥ 3.7 required) and (link to) Master thesis

shall be send to: c.schilling@lmu.de  

with subject line: "postdoc" or "phd" + relevant project number(s) P1-P4 

Descriptions of our long-term research programs

P1: Tensor network methods for quantum chemistry
Concise tools from quantum information theory shall be used to explore and quantify the correlation structure of molecular ground states with the ultimate aim of advancing the implementation of tensor network ansatzes in quantum chemistry. For instance, we are seeking procedures for systematically optimizing the orbitals within QC-DMRG to maximize the locality of the electronic Hamiltonian on the underlying ''lattice’’ structure. Moreover, novel ideas shall be proposed and tested for covering the important dynamical correlations, e.g., through DMRG-hybrid methods or regularization techniques applied to the diverging Coulomb pair-potential.

P2: Foundation of quantum computing: fermionic systems
To support the ongoing second quantum revolution, we are utilizing fundamental results on the entanglement structure of fermionic ground states in the context of variational quantum eigensolvers. For instance, estimates on the particle correlation in molecules will yield lower bounds on the minimal number of logical qubits required to prepare a molecular ground state in a quantum circuit with chemical accuracy. Then, respective quantum algorithms shall be proposed for tackling the fermionic ground state problem more accurately on a NISQ device by reducing further the number of required quantum gates. The concept of orbital rotations analysed with concise quantum information theoretical tools (total correlation, quantum & classical correlation, entanglement) will play a key role for this.

P3: Quantum information theory for fermions
We are elaborating on two complementary definitions of entanglement and correlation in fermionic systems, namely between particles and between orbitals/modes. By anticipating the significance of fermionic quantum systems for the ongoing second quantum revolution, respective operationally meaningful measures shall be established based on the geometric picture of quantum states. The potentially ground-breaking conjecture that particle entanglement equals orbital entanglement minimized with respect to all orbital reference bases shall comprehensively be explored and verified. This in turn would allow us to replace the rather obscure but broadly used concept of static and dynamic correlation by a measure of the true/intrinsic complexity of the underlying quantum state. Moreover, concepts from quantum thermodynamics shall be used to provide a more concise definition of chemical bonding.

P4: Foundation of functional theories & N-representability problem
Based on a concise understanding of the geometry of reduced density matrices and by resorting to concepts from quantum information theory we are going to construct more sophisticated one-matrix functional approximations. Tools from convex analysis as well as the recently discovered fermionic exchange force will play a crucial role. They will allow us to fix the fundamental flaws of state-of-the-art functionals which surprisingly still violate elementary geometric principles related to the N-representability problem. A second ambition is to propose first functional approximations for w-RDMFT, a functional theory that we recently proposed for targeting excitation energies of strongly correlated quantum systems.


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