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Sahra Kulmiya | Quantum Physicist

@sahra_superposed

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⚛️ Visualising quantum physics and computing - No AI
🧙‍♀️ Scientist in Trapped Ion Quantum Computing
💫 Follow to learn a little quantum every week

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Hello, my name is Sahra :)

This is a bit of a change from my usual mathematical and quantum visual posts. There being 5000 followers on my account now, and a lot of dms asking me about my background, I thought I’d share a bit of information about me :)

Of course it’s a little embarrassing to open yourself up to the internet, but I hope this is received well by the people who are interested. I love trapping ions and I cannot wait to introduce my lab and the work that I really do behind the scenes, so if there’s anything in particular that you are interested in hearing more about, please do leave a comment down below, or just dm me :)

My ion trapping partner and best friend is @daisyrainsmith

Again thank you for following along :)

#intro #science #physics #womeninstem by @sahra_superposed

So here’s the second postulate!

This one recalls all the previous terms about Hermiticity, linearity, completeness and orthonormality. And to be more technical, the position and momentum operators are actually ‘self-adjoint’ since they are infinite dimensional 👀.
Nevertheless, establishing this postulate in quantum mechanics is important for some of the more philosophical implications that might aid in better understanding quantum mechanics.

This of course doesn’t mean there aren’t still fierce debates about what it all means.

What do you think about this postulate? Follow to see more of these :)

#physics #quantum #science #philosophy by @sahra_superposed

The postulates of quantum mechanics came about from the fierce debate surrounding the measurement problem.

The many worlds interpretations, Copenhagen interpretation, and so on all try to accurately describe the reality of quantum mechanics, but it isn’t really required to actually utilise quantum mechanics in every day life, such as for building quantum technologies.

But it’s still a fun exercise to try and understand what’s happening to particles on the fundamental scale!

#quantum #physics #science #quantumphysics #fyp by @sahra_superposed

Hello, sorry I haven’t posted in a while everyone. It’s been a bit busy with the start of the academic year. This is a small snippet of my morning in quantum computing research, I’ve had a lot of DMs about what I do day to day, and I hope this clarifies a little what an ‘office’ day looks like versus what a day in the lab might be like :)

Follow if you’d like to see more content like this!

#quantum #quantumcomputing #physics #womeninstem #stem by @sahra_superposed

Hello everyone, just wanted to share a slow day in my life as a quantum computing researcher :)
#physics #quantum #quantumphysics #womeninstem #quantumcomputing by @sahra_superposed

We all get feelings of insecurity. Imposter syndrome probably affects scientists the most, across every gender, race, and background, especially in numerical subjects like physics and maths.

I went through it myself, and came so close to quitting multiple times. If I could say one thing to the next generation of physicists and scientists, it would be this: If you think that you aren’t smart enough for physics, quantum physics and indeed any field in science, just know that this is not true, and you are absolutely good enough.

Don’t ever give up becoming who you want to be :)

#womeninstem #women #physics #science #quantum by @sahra_superposed

Hello, just sharing some videos of my lab using some popular video formats :)

I work in a quantum computing lab and perform experiments on trapped ion qubits. You can see a bunch of videos and images of vacuum chambers, FPGAs, electronics, laser racks and so on, because the work I do in trapped ion quantum computing spans everything from software engineering, physics, micro fabrication, laser alignment and electronics.

Depending on how popular this particular post is, I would love to share exactly what’s going on in every photo and video, and explain what the requirements are for building such a complex set up :)

Let me know what you guys think, and follow for content like this!

#physics #quantumtechnology #womeninstem #science #fyp by @sahra_superposed

Here are quantum state vectors part 2!

I reflected on my last chapter quite a bit (quantum state vectors part 1), and I realised that actually, I find it helpful to see most of the important concepts of quantum states in the discrete basis, especially in the context of Quantum Computing. Going into integrals and wave-function formalisms in the continuous basis adds a layer of complexity which I won’t go into too deeply yet.

So here I’ve recapped most of what I talked about in the last chapter, and added much cleaner, straightforward examples. The second to last slide on triangle and Schwartz Inequalities is new. Hopefully you find the diagrams and examples given helpful at first glance.

You might notice I put the outer product in the opening slide, but I didn’t say anything about it. That’s because it’s not a quantum state vector but an operator. I’m sort of ‘name-dropping’ it here.

Thanks for enjoying this chapters, there’s so much more to come. As always let me know whether this was helpful :)

Follow for more content like this.

#physics #math #quantumphysics #science by @sahra_superposed

A bit of a closer look at quantum states.

In this slightly longer post, I wanted to explore some of the more subtle ideas of representation, and what it means to represent a quantum state vector in a coordinate system (basis) like position.

Position is easiest to think about conceptually, but the momentum and energy eigenstates are also valid basis states that you can use to represent quantum states. Of course qubits, which are simple two dimensional quantum states, are represented in computational basis states, and when we begin exploring qubits more closely the maths will be simpler.

For this week however, I wanted to explore the ideas of what makes a valid, measurable quantum state, so we to look at ideas of orthonormality and completeness.

Are there any concepts you would like to see expanded on or explored in quantum mechanics?

Follow to learn more about quantum states :)

#physics #quantummechanics #fyp #science #quantum by @sahra_superposed

We are now at a more advanced stage in our journey through quantum mechanics, where we look at functions of operators! Instead of just operators themselves and what they might mean.

The BCH formula gave me a hard time in my quantum mechanics courses and unfortunately as much as I would have liked to never come across it again, it came up EVERY where in quantum computing.

One example is the solution to Schrodingers equation under interesting Hamiltonians that you might encounter in ion trap physics, such as the application of driving fields on harmonic oscillators and spin states when you have a magnetic field gradient.
The operators in those scenarios span from Paulis to annihilation and creation operators, and many operators don’t commute. So BCH is wielded left and right.

Interestingly enough, all of these guys independently built on the formula and they all never met, DESPITE all being alive at the same time… bummer.

Follow along if you liked this :)

#physics #quantum #quantumcomputing #science #fyp by @sahra_superposed

Ever wondered what a quantum computing lab looks like? There’s vacuum chambers, a mess of cables, lasers, glass optics etc. #physics #quantum #lab #science by @sahra_superposed

Three things I wish I knew before pursuing a quantum computing PhD:

1. Quantum computing is such a huge field, that you either get on board being an engineer, plumber, software programmer, woodworker and theoretician all in one, or you dedicate yourself ONLY to perfecting the purity of sine wave generator outputs 😂know . I would have made sure to really understand this before working in a particular group.

2. You can do quantum PhDs as part of industry (and hosted by universities) where you get more money (very useful) or you get paid minimum wage by universities. If you know you are going to go into industry after graduation this can come in very useful to know sooner rather than later.

3. Quantum technology = computing, sensing, communication, whereas quantum computing is COMPUTING, so you must understand what hardware or qubit modality you want to pursue and their immediate bottlenecks before dedicating 4 years to it. For example, if you like quantum computing, a large part is improving fidelities of gate operations, so most of your time will be reducing error one order of magnitude at a time. Quantum sensing leverages quantum physics to measure super small fields (electric fields, magnetic fields) so most of your time would be spent reducing order of magnitudes in field sensing etc. choose your obsession wisely :)

Hope that gave a small insight into what I’d like to have known before beginning my PhD, I’ll be providing some more advice as well in future, so follow along if you’d like to stay tuned :)

#physics #quantum #science #womeninstem #fyp by @sahra_superposed