Barbara M. Terhal (born 1969) is a theoretical physicist working in

quantum information Quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information refers to both t ...

and

quantum computing A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of wave-particle duality, both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using s ...

. She is a professor in the Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics at

TU Delft The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

, as well as leading the Terhal Group at QuTech, the Dutch institute for

and quantum internet, founded by TU Delft and the

Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (, abbreviated TNO, literally "Dutch Organisation for Applied Scientific Research") is an independent statutory research organisation in the Netherlands that focuses on applied science ...

(TNO). Her research concerns many areas in quantum information theory, including entanglement detection,

quantum error correction Quantum error correction (QEC) is a set of techniques used in quantum computing to protect quantum information from errors due to decoherence and other quantum noise. Quantum error correction is theorised as essential to achieve fault tolerant ...

fault-tolerant Fault tolerance is the ability of a system to maintain proper operation despite failures or faults in one or more of its components. This capability is essential for high-availability, mission-critical, or even life-critical systems. Fault to ...

quantum computing and quantum memories.

Education and early life

Barbara Terhal was born in Leiden in 1969. Already in her early school days, she enjoyed mathematics, physics and solving puzzles. Terhal completed her PhD Cum Laude on "Quantum Algorithms and Quantum Entanglement" at the University of Amsterdam in 1999, making her the first person to receive a PhD in quantum computing in the Netherlands. As part of her thesis, she coined the term

entanglement witness In quantum information theory, an entanglement witness is a functional which distinguishes a specific entangled state from separable ones. Entanglement witnesses can be linear or nonlinear functionals of the density matrix. If linear, then t ...

and proposed their use as alternatives to Bell tests for entanglement detection.

Career and research

After her PhD, Terhal joined the IBM Watson Research Centre in

Yorktown Heights, New York Yorktown Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Yorktown in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 1,781 at the 2010 census. History Yorktown Heights is in the town of Yorktown, New York, in northe ...

and the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

(Caltech) as a postdoctoral researcher. Between 2001 and 2010, she worked at IBM on a number of topics, including low-depth quantum circuits or stoquastic Hamiltonians, perturbative gadgets for quantum simulation and quantum complexity theory. She also developed quantum protocols for remote state preparation, quantum locking and quantum data hiding. In 2010, Terhal became a professor in theoretical physics at

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), in German ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen'', is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study prog ...

. In addition, she held another position at the

Forschungszentrum Jülich Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ; “Jülich Research Centre”) is a German national research institution that pursues interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, information, and bioeconomy. It operates a broad range of research infrast ...

from 2015 - 2022. In 2017 she moved to Delft, becoming a professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) at TU Delft and group leader at QuTech. Since 2007, Terhal has been a fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

and has held the post of Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the

Perimeter Institute Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor i ...

Waterloo Waterloo most commonly refers to: * Battle of Waterloo, 1815 battle where Napoleon's French army was defeated by Anglo-allied and Prussian forces * Waterloo, Belgium Waterloo may also refer to: Other places Australia * Waterloo, New South Wale ...

, Canada, since 2014. Terhal's current research focuses on quantum error correction and its realisation in solid-state qubits. She is also interested in quantum complexity theory and how it can be used to demonstrate the power of a quantum computer.

Awards

Barbara Terhal has received the following awards: * Awarded the Outstanding Innovation Award by IBM Research in 2007 * Elected a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada in 2014 * Selected as Outstanding Referee by the American Physical Society in 2015 * Elected member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

in 2020.

Publications

Her publications include: * B.M. Terhal, “Bell Inequalities and The Separability Criterion”, Physics Letters A 271, 319 (2000) * B.M. Terhal and D.P. DiVincenzo, “Adaptive quantum computation, constant depth quantum circuits, and Arthur Merlin games”, Quant. Inf. and Comp. 4:2, pp. 134–145 (2004) * B.M. Terhal, “Quantum Error Correction for Quantum Memories”, Rev. Mod. Phys. 87, 307 (2015) She has also written an essay on the fragility of quantum information.

References

External links

CV on RWTH Aachen University staff page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Terhal, Barbara Living people 21st-century Dutch physicists Dutch women physicists Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences 1969 births Scientists from Leiden Fellows of the American Physical Society University of Amsterdam alumni Quantum information scientists