My name is Anna Brandenberger, and I graduated this fall 2020 with a BSc in physics and computer science from McGill University.

A very interesting result from the quantum world is that contrary to the classical setting, it is possible to create an algorithm to gain energy from erasing qubits rather than losing energy. This comes from the notion that conditional entropy can be negative for quantum systems, which is fundamentally linked to quantum entanglement. This could be applied to quantum computing: the idea is that in the course of a quantum algorithm, there are moments where registers erased, and it is possible to use this step to extract work and absorb environmental heat in the erasure, instead of dissipating heat.

My project therefore aims to find explicit protocols for efficient online erasure of quantum registers. In the long term, this would help keep quantum computers cool through intensive computations.

In parallel, I am interested in ways to visualize entropy in both the classical and quantum worlds. This would help introduce the concept to a much wider audience.