Daniel Amihud Lidar (; born 1968) is the holder of the Viterbi Professorship of Engineering at the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
, where he is a professor of electrical engineering, chemistry, physics & astronomy. He is the director and co-founder of the
USC USC may refer to:
Education
United States
* Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico
* University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina
** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina
* ...
quantum system
Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
s and
quantum information processing
Quantum information science is a field that combines the principles of quantum mechanics with information theory to study the processing, analysis, and transmission of information. It covers both theoretical and experimental aspects of quantum phys ...
.
Education
He is a class of 1986 graduate of the
Armand Hammer United World College of the American West
The United World College, USA (UWC-USA), officially the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West, is a United World College school in San Miguel County, New Mexico, San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. It was founded in 198 ...
. He obtained his PhD from the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...
in 1997 under Robert Benny Gerber and Ofer Biham, with a thesis entitled ''Structural Characterization of Disordered Systems''.
Career
In 1997–2000, he was a postdoc at
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...
, having been awarded Rothschild Foundation and
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...
fellowships (the latter of which he declined); in 2000–2005, he was an assistant professor and then later an associate professor of chemistry at the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...
, with cross-appointments in physics and mathematics. He moved to the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
in 2005, where he is a professor of
electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
,
chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
, and
physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
.
Honors
He was a 2017
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
recipient, a 2007 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 ...
, a 2012 Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
, and 2015 Fellow of the
IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines.
The IEEE ...
. He is listed as one of the top 20 authors of the decade 2000–2009 in
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 ...
by
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...
' Sciencewatch. In 2009 he was elected an Outstanding Referee 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 ...
. His early career awards include a
Sloan Foundation
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., president and chief executive officer of General Motors.
The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support origin ...
Fellowship, the Young Explorer Award given by the
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) is a Canadian-based global research organization that brings together teams of top researchers from around the world to address important and complex questions. It was founded in 1982 and is su ...
for the top 20 researchers in Canada under age 40, and the
John Charles Polanyi
John Charles Polanyi (; born 23 January 1929) is a German-born Canadian chemist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics.
Polanyi was born into the prominent Hungarian Polányi (Pollacsek) fami ...
Prize in Chemistry awarded by the Ontario Council of Graduate Studies.
Research
He has made numerous contributions to
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 ...
and
quantum control
Coherent control is a quantum mechanics-based method for controlling dynamic processes by light. The basic principle is to control quantum interference phenomena, typically by shaping the phase of laser pulses. The basic ideas have proliferated, f ...
, and is the coeditor and coauthor of a book on
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 ...
quantum annealing
Quantum annealing (QA) is an optimization process for finding the global minimum of a given objective function over a given set of candidate solutions (candidate states), by a process using quantum fluctuations. Quantum annealing is used mainly ...
, areas where he has made widely cited contributions to studying the capabilities of the
D-Wave Systems
D-Wave Quantum Inc. is a quantum computing company with locations in Palo Alto, California and Burnaby, British Columbia. D-Wave claims to be the world's first company to sell computers that exploit quantum effects in their operation. D-Wa ...
processors. His past interests include
scattering theory
In physics, scattering is a wide range of physical processes where moving particles or radiation of some form, such as light or sound, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by localized non-uniformities (including particles and radiat ...
and
fractals
In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...
. Lidar's research in quantum information processing has focused primarily on methods for overcoming
decoherence
Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence. It involves generally a loss of information of a system to its environment. Quantum decoherence has been studied to understand how quantum systems convert to systems that can be expla ...
. He wrote some of the founding papers on
decoherence-free subspaces
A decoherence-free subspace (DFS) is a subspace of a quantum system's Hilbert space that is invariant to non-unitary dynamics. Alternatively stated, they are a small section of the system Hilbert space where the system is decoupled from the envi ...
, most notably his widely cited paper "Decoherence-free subspaces for quantum computation", and their generalization, noiseless subsystems. These contributions were noted in his APS Fellow citation. He has also made major contributions to dynamical decoupling, in particular the invention of the concatenated dynamical decoupling (CDD) method. He has made a proposal to protect
adiabatic quantum computation
Adiabatic quantum computation (AQC) is a form of quantum computing which relies on the adiabatic theorem to perform calculations and is closely related to quantum annealing.
Description
First, a (potentially complicated) Hamiltonian is found w ...
against decoherence, using dynamical decoupling, one of the only proposals to date dealing with error correction for the adiabatic model. Lidar has also worked on quantum algorithms, having written some of the pioneering papers in the subject on simulation of classical statistical mechanics and quantum chemistry. In his PhD work he made a widely cited observation on the limited scaling range of empirically observed
fractals
In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...
, which led to an exchange with
Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of phy ...
.
Patents
He holds several U.S. patents in the areas of quantum computing and optimization.
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organ ...
, October 29, 2005, pp. 30–33
* "Single field shapes quantum bits", Technology Research News, November 3/10, 2004
* "Sturdy quantum computing demoed", Technology Research News, April 7/14, 2004
* "World Computations", Lifestyles Magazine Vol. 31, No. 182, 2002, pp. 38–40 (an interview)
* "Quantum Protection", NSERC Newsbureau Bulletin No. 46, published April 25, 2002
* "A quantum leap in the way computers think",
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division.
...
, March 28, 2002, National Report section
* "Alternative quantum bits go natural", Technology Research News, April 2001
* "Quantum Computers",
Chemical & Engineering News
''Chemical & Engineering News'' (''C&EN'') is a weekly news magazine published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), providing professional and technical news and analysis in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering.''Science'', Editor’s Choice, September 2000
* "Quantum Computing for Chemists",
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organ ...