Spring 2026

This seminar meets on Wednesdays 2:00-3:00 PM in Blocker 302.

The organizers are Simone Cecchini, Runije Hu, Qiaochu Ma, Jesus Sanchez Jr, Zhizhang Xie and Guoliang Yu.

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Abstract
January 14, 2026	Jintao Deng	-	The Coarse Baum–Connes Conjecture and Group Extensions	View Abstract
January 14, 2026	Liyuan Chen	Harvard University	Toward useful quantum computation: from near term to fault tolerance	View Abstract
January 21, 2026
January 28, 2026
January 30, 2026	Luca Di Cerbo	TBD	TBD	TBD
February 04, 2026
February 11, 2026
February 18, 2026
February 25, 2026
March 04, 2026
March 11, 2026
March 18, 2026
March 25, 2026
April 01, 2026
April 08, 2026
April 15, 2026
April 22, 2026
April 29, 2026
May 06, 2026

Past Seminars

• Fall 2025

Related Links

• Departmental seminar website (not working as of Aug 21, 2025)
• Departmental website of the geometry and topology group (very out of date of Aug 21, 2025)

The coarse Baum–Connes conjecture is a central problem in noncommutative geometry, capturing deep connections between operator algebras and the large-scale geometry of metric spaces. While the conjecture is inherently coarse-geometric in nature, understanding its behavior under group extensions presents significant challenges, as extensions often obscure large-scale geometric properties. In this talk, I will discuss recent progress on the coarse Baum–Connes conjecture for groups arising from extensions, highlighting the techniques used to analyze their coarse geometry.

Two central goals in quantum science are (i) near-term simulation of many-body physics and (ii) scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computation in the long term. I will present two recent advances toward both aims. For (i), we present theoretical and experimental studies of globally controlled analog simulators, positioning them as principled platforms for quantum simulation. For (ii), we develop a non-Abelian topological framework in two dimensions that provides a route to fault-tolerant universality and remains compatible with current devices. Together, these results outline a practical trajectory from near-term simulation to scalable quantum computation.

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Abstract