Two members of Brunel's mathematics department, undergraduate student Luke Dando and senior lecturer Dr Shashank Virmani, have been awarded an Undergraduate Research Bursary by the London Mathematical Society to work on the topic of Quantum computing.
Significant efforts are underway internationally to build a new type of computer known as a “quantum computer” that could potentially solve problems much more efficiently than the best known conventional computational methods.
Luke says of the project: “Prototype early forms of quantum computer have been built, but there has been some debate about the extent to which they can achieve things that conventional computing cannot. The project will examine a variety of technical subtleties that arise in this debate, and develop approaches to understanding some of them. Having the chance to learn about this debate from a mathematician's perspective is a fantastic opportunity to transition from a student to a researcher, and I am really looking forward to working on the problem over the summer”.
Shashank tells us: “Luke has done amazingly well to secure a highly competitive scholarship. I am looking forward to working with him and introducing him to this cutting edge research area. We are also grateful to the London Mathematical Society for funding this opportunity, and to my colleague Dr Simon Shaw for all the support he gave us when we were putting the application together”.