Five O’Clock Quantum Tea: Can quantum computing aid gravitational wave detection?

Gravitational wave detectors represent an astonishing feat of engineering. They can detect a change in length smaller than the diameter of a proton, a subatomic particle. This extraordinary sensitivity is needed to detect gravitational waves, ripples in spacetime, as they cross the Earth's path, but also means that they are highly sensitive to noise sources, e.g. seismic noise, and even passing traffic. The data analysis techniques needed to extract signals from this noise are computationally intensive, leading researchers to seek improvements and explore new techniques. Alongside this, rapid progress is being made in the development of quantum computers: computational devices whose building blocks behave according to the laws of quantum mechanics. These devices are fundamentally different from their classical counterparts: the chips in your phone, laptop, and in supercomputers. But what will they be used for? Originally proposed as the natural way to simulate quantum systems, algorithms were proposed in the 1990s that promised a speed-up over existing devices for other computational problems: notably searching through a large database, and factoring large numbers. The bar is high for a quantum algorithm to be useful: it must not only solve a problem of interest, but must do so better than any alternative methods. Prof. Sarah Croke will give a brief introduction to quantum computers, and to gravitational wave data analysis, and explore data analysis in gravitational wave detection as a potential application area for quantum computers.