American computer scientist
Chetan Nayak (born 1971) is an American physicist and computer scientist specializing in quantum computing . He is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a technical fellow and distinguished engineer on the Microsoft Azure Quantum hardware team.[ 4] He joined Microsoft in 2005 and became director and general manager of Quantum Hardware at Microsoft Station Q at Microsoft Research in 2014.[ 5] [ 6] [ 7]
Education and career
Nayak was born in New York City in 1971. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1992 and a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1996.[ 5] [ 3] His dissertation on “Theories of the half-filled Landau level” was completed under Frank Anthony Wilczek.[ 3]
In 1996, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB and a Professor of Physics at UCLA from 1997 to 2006.[ 5] [ 8] [ 9]
He joined Microsoft in 2005 as a visiting researcher in Redmond, Washington and the faculty of UCSB in 2007 where he has served as Technical Fellow and Professor of Condensed Matter Theory through 2024.[ 5] [ 7] [ 10] [ 11]
Nayak has contributed to the theory of topological phases , high-temperature superconductivity , the quantum Hall effect , and phases of periodically-driven quantum systems.[ 12] [ 13] [ 14] [ 15] [ 16] [ 11] [ 17] [ 18]
Scientific Work
In 1996, Nayak and Wilczek discovered the type of non-Abelian statistics in paired quantum Hall states associated with Majorana zero modes.[ 16]
In 2005, with Michael Freedman and Sankar Das Sarma, Nayak authored a proposal for a topological qubit using the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state as the non-Abelian topological state.[ 14] [ 19]
In 2006 and 2008, Sarma, Freedman and Nayak developed theoretical proposals for topological quantum computing based on non-abelian anyons.[ 17] [ 11]
In 2011, Nayak, Parsa Bonderson and Victor Gurarie proved that quasiparticles in certain quantized Hall states are non-Abelian anyons, firmly establishing the mathematical foundation of these particles.[ 12]
In 2016, with Dominic Else and Bela Bauer, he developed Floquet time crystals and predicted its occurrence in periodically-driven systems.[ 15] [ 18]
Nayak also led research teams in inducing a phase of matter characterized by Majorana zero modes with low enough disorder to pass the topological gap protocol, demonstrating the viability of topological quantum computing. [ 20]
Recognition
Nayak is a Fellow of the American Physical Society , a recipient of the Outstanding Young Physicist Award from the American Chapter of the Indian Physics Association, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and an NSF Early Career Award.[ 1] [ 2] [ 21] [ 22]
References
^ a b " "APS Fellowship Division of Condensed Matter Physics Fellowship" . American Physical Society . 2011. Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b "2000 Annual Report" (PDF) . Sloan.org . 2000. Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b c d Nayak, Chetan (November 1996). "Theories of the Half-Filled Landau Level" . ProQuest . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ Kelley, Alexandra (8 February 2024). "Microsoft Quantum Coming Getting DARPA Funding" . Redmond Channel Partner Magazine . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b c d "Shelly Gable, Chetan Nayak" . The New York Times . 20 March 2005. Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ Simonite, Tom (4 November 2019). "Microsoft is Taking Quantum Computers to the Cloud" . Wired . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b Savitsky, Zach (20 December 2023). " "A ghostly quasiparticle rooted in a century-old Italian mystery could unlock quantum computing's potential—if only it could be pinned down" . Science.org . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ Gurarie, Victor; Flohr, Michael; Nayak, Chetan (11 August 1997). "The Haldane-Rezayi quantum Hall state and conformal field theory" . Nuclear Physics B . 498 (13): 513-538. arXiv :cond-mat/9701212 . Bibcode :1997NuPhB.498..513G . doi :10.1016/S0550-3213(97)00351-9 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ Freedman, Michael; Nayak, Chetan; Walker, Kevin; Wang, Zhenghan (11 August 1997). "A class of P,T-invariant topological phases of interacting electrons" (PDF) . Annals of Physics . 310 (2004): 428-492. arXiv :cond-mat/0307511 . doi :10.1016/j.aop.2004.01.006 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ "Condensed Matter Theory" . University of California Santa Barbara . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b c Nayak, Chetan; Simon, Steven; Stern, Ady; Freedman, Michael; Das Sarma, Sankar (2008). " "Non-Abelian anyons and topological quantum computation" . Reviews of Modern Physics . 80 (3): 1083. arXiv :0707.1889 . Bibcode :2008RvMP...80.1083N . doi :10.1103/RevModPhys.80.1083 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b Wilczek, Frank (11 February 2011). "A landmark proof" . Physics . 4 : 10. arXiv :1008.5194 . doi :10.1103/PhysRevB.83.075303 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ Moore, Joel (5 October 2009). "Quasiparticles do the twist" . Physics . 2 : 82. doi :10.1103/PhysRevB.80.155303 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b Markoff, John (23 June 2014). "Microsoft Makes Bet Quantum Computing is Next Breakthrough" . The New York Times . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b Zyga, Lisa (9 September 2016). "Time crystals might exist after all" . Phys.org . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b Nayak, Chetan; Wilczek, Frank (18 November 1996). "2n-quasihole states realize 2n−1-dimensional spinor braiding statistics in paired quantum Hall states" . Nuclear Physics B . 479 (3): 529-553. arXiv :cond-mat/9605145 . doi :10.1016/0550-3213(96)00430-0 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b Das Sarma, Sankar; Freedman, Michael; Nayak, Chetan (1 July 2006). [hhttps://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article-abstract/59/7/32/1040851/Topological-quantum-computationThe-search-for-a?redirectedFrom=fulltext "Topological Quantum Computation"]. Physics Today . 59 (7): 32-28. Bibcode :2006PhT....59g..32S . doi :10.1063/1.2337825 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ a b Else, Dominic; Bauer, Bela; Nayak, Chetan (26 August 2016). "Floquet Time Crystals" . Physical Review Letters . 117 (9): 090402. arXiv :1603.08001 . Bibcode :2016PhRvL.117i0402E . doi :10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.090402 . PMID 27610834 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ Das Sarma, Sankar; Freedman, Michael; Nayak, Chetan (27 April 2005). "Topologically Protected Qubits from a Possible Non-Abelian Fractional Quantum Hall State" . Physical Review Letters . 94 (16): 166802. arXiv :cond-mat/0412343 . doi :10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.090402 . PMID 27610834 . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ Yirka, Bob (24 June 2023). "Microsoft claims to have achieved first milestone in creating a reliable and practical quantum computer" . Phys.org . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ "Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellows Database" . Alfred P. Sloan Foundation . 2000. Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
^ "Chetan Nayak" . Aspen Center for Physics . Retrieved 2024-10-04 .
External links
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