Quantum Time Machines: What, Why and How? Queensland/Tokyo Tim Ralph presents a Qulink seminar on closed timelike curves in context of quantum information processing. "Whether time travel into the past is possible is an undecided physical question. Recently it has been noted that certain models of time travel for quantum particles do not lead to the same difficult paradoxes that arise for classical particles. Furthermore the types of quantum evolutions predicted for these 'quantum time machines' could give rise to a 'super' quantum computer, able to solve problems thought to be intractable by any other means. In this talk I will discuss time machines in general, how quantum mechanics avoids the paradoxes and the unusual evolutions predicted. I will then argue that the requirements for realizing such machines are not as stringent as previously thought and I will propose "horizon technology" experiments which could test these ideas."

Theoretical and Experimental Exploration of Time Reversal Formalism Applied to Entanglement IQC, Waterloo In quant-ph/0510048, Laforest, Laflamme and Baugh investigate time reversal of the Schrodinger equation in the context of teleportation. Experimental results are consistent with the interpretation that information can be seen as flowing backward in time through entanglement. "In this paper, we analyze whether the acausal flow of information in a teleportation protocol can actually be physical, or should only consist of a mathematical model. Using an NMR spectrometer, we have demonstrated experimental results faithful with the interpretation that, conditionally and in principle, entanglement seems like it can break the causality of time."

RSFQ Circuits with Selective Dissipation for Coherent Quantum Information Processing VTT, Finland RSFQ, or rapid single flux quantum logic serves as a central component of HTMT, hybrid technology multi-threaded computing and other prototype high-performance architectures. In cond-mat/0510189, Hassel et al. investigate frequency-dependent damping as a means to reduce dissipation and subsequent decoherence in Josephson junction RSFQ/qubit circuits. "We derive criteria for the stability of such an arrangement, and discuss the effect on decoherence and the optimisation issues. We also design a simple flux generator aimed at manipulating flux qubits."

Life, the Universe and The Complexity Zoo IQC Waterloo In Shtetl-Optimized, Scott Aaronson waxes poetic on complexity theory: "Why is it so hard to explain that we don't worry about [complexity classes] because we're eccentric anal-retentives, but because we want to know whether a never-ending cavalcade of machines, each richer and more complicated than the last, might possibly succeed at a task on which any one machine must inevitably flounder – namely, the task of outracing time itself, of simulating cosmic history in an eyeblink, of seeing in the unformed clumps of an embryonic universe the swirl of every galaxy and flight of every hummingbird billions of years hence, like Almighty God Himself?"

Workshop on Quantum and Classical Information Security ARDA/NSA/NSF/Caltech 15-18 December 2005 – "The workshop will bring together researchers from a variety of backgrounds who work on different aspects of classical and quantum information security. Participants will strive to identify issues and problems of common interest that can be effectively addressed by pooling their expertise."

Flux Qubits as Trapped Ions RIKEN In quant-ph 0509236, Liu, Wei, Tsai and Nori propose a scalable superconducting circuit in which the qubits act as 'trapped ions.' The qubits are coupled to a 'vibrating' mode provided by a superconducting inductor-capacitor circuit, and interqubit couplings are selectively controlled by modulating the frequencies of the applied time-dependent magnetic flux.

Parametric Coupling for Flux Qubits Delft Pashkin and McDermott have independently demonstrated entanglement between superconducting qubits using a fixed linear coupling scheme. In cond-mat 0509799, Bertet, Harmans and Mooij propose a scalable architecture for two superconducting charge or flux qubits biased at symmetry points with unequal energy splittings. "The fixed-coupling strategy would be difficult to scale to a large number of qubits, and it is desirable to investigate more sophisticated schemes. Modulating the coupling constant between two qubits at the sum or difference of their two frequencies allows to bring them into resonance in the rotating frame. Switching on and off the modulation amounts to switching on and off the coupling which can be realized at nanosecond speed. We discuss various physical implementations of this idea, and find that our scheme can lead to rapid operation of a two-qubit gate."