Robert König

Scientific Report on TUM-IAS Fellowship 

Since 2015, the Focus Group Complex Quantum Systems has been studying to what extent quantum effects can be exploited to enhance information processing. We have made a variety of contributions to quantum information theory and the theory of quantum computation. Our work provides new fundamental physical limits to communication using quantum systems, as well as novel ways of harnessing quantum effects to enhance computation. full report

Short CV

Following his studies in physics at ETH Zurich, Robert König received his PhD from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2007. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Quantum Information, Caltech, as well as the IBM TJ Watson Research Center. Prior to joining TUM as a Rudolf Mößbauer Tenure Track Professor, he was an assistant professor at the Institute for Quantum Computing of the University of Waterloo. Since 2015, he has been assistant professor at TUM.


Selected Awards

  • 2013, Discovery grant, NSERC Canada
  • 2010, Fellowship for advanced researchers, Swiss National Science Foundation
  • 2006, Smith/Rayleigh-Knight-Prize, University of Cambridge
  • 2005, Fellowship of the Janggen-Pöhn Foundation (declined)
  • 2003, ETH-Medal and Willi-Studer-Prize, ETH Zurich
  • 2003, Pólya-Prize, Department for Mathematics and Physics, ETH Zurich

Research Interests

Robert König is interested in all physical, mathematical and computational aspects of quantum mechanics. Through his research, he aims to clarify the exact potential of physical systems when used to process information. He focuses on mathematical methods for quantum communication, cryptography and computation, as well as the application of operationally motivated concepts to the study of fundamental properties of matter.


Selected Publications

  • Bravyi, Sergey; Gosset, David; König, Robert: Quantum advantage with shallow circuits. Science 362 (6412), 2018, 308-311.
  • König, Robert; Smith, Graeme: Limits on classical communication from quantum entropy power inequalities. Nature Photonics, 2013, 142-146.
  • König, Robert; Kuperberg, Greg; Reichardt, Ben W.: Quantum computation with Turaev–Viro codes. Annals of Physics 325 (12), 2010, 2707-2749.
  • König, Robert; Renner, Renato; Bariska, Andor; Maurer, Ueli: Small Accessible Quantum Information Does Not Imply Security. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (14), 2007.
  • Christandl, Matthias; König, Robert; Mitchison, Graeme; Renner, Renato: One-and-a-Half Quantum de Finetti Theorems. Commun. Math. Phys. 273, 2007, 473-498.

Publications as TUM-IAS-Fellow

2020

  • Bravyi, Sergey; Gosset, David; König, Robert; Tomamichel, Marco: Quantum advantage with noisy shallow circuits. Nature Physics 16 (10), 2020, 1040-1045 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Bravyi, Sergey; Kliesch, Alexander; Koenig, Robert; Tang, Eugene: Obstacles to Variational Quantum Optimization from Symmetry Protection. Physical Review Letters 125 (26), 2020 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Huber, Stefan; Konig, Robert; Tomamichel, Marco: Jointly Constrained Semidefinite Bilinear Programming With an Application to Dobrushin Curves. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 66 (5), 2020, 2934-2950 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Hänggli, Lisa; Heinze, Margret; König, Robert: Enhanced noise resilience of the surface–Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill code via designed bias. Physical Review A 102 (5), 2020 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Kliesch, Alexander; König, Robert: Continuum Limits of Homogeneous Binary Trees and the Thompson Group. Physical Review Letters 124 (1), 2020 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )

2019

  • Bravyi, Sergey; Gosset, David; König, Robert; Tomamichel, Marco: Quantum advantage with noisy shallow circuits in 3D. 2019 more… BibTeX
  • Bravyi, Sergey; Kliesch, Alexander; König, Robert; Tang, Eugene: Obstacles to State Preparation and Variational Optimization from Symmetry Protection. 2019 more… BibTeX
  • Bravyi, Sergey; Gosset, David; König, Robert; Temme, Kristan: Approximation algorithms for quantum many-body problems. Journal of Mathematical Physics 60 (3), 2019, 032203 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Fukuda, Motohisa; König, Robert: Typical entanglement for Gaussian states. Journal of Mathematical Physics 60 (11), 2019, 112203 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Fukuda, Motohisa; König, Robert; Nechita, Ion: RTNI—A symbolic integrator for Haar-random tensor networks. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 52 (42), 2019, 425303 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Gschwendtner, Martina; König, Robert; Şahinoğlu, Burak; Tang, Eugene: Quantum error-detection at low energies. Journal of High Energy Physics 2019 (9), 2019 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Heinze, Margret; König, Robert: Universal Uhrig Dynamical Decoupling for Bosonic Systems. Physical Review Letters 123 (1), 2019 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Huber, Stefan; König, Robert; Tomamichel, Marco: Jointly constrained semidefinite bilinear programming with an application to Dobrushin curves. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 2019, 1-1 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )

2018

  • Bravyi, Sergey; Englbrecht, Matthias; König, Robert; Peard, Nolan: Correcting coherent errors with surface codes. npj Quantum Information 4 (1), 2018 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Bravyi, Sergey; Gosset, David; König, Robert: Quantum advantage with shallow circuits. Science 362 (6412), 2018, 308-311 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Huber, Stefan; König, Robert: Coherent state coding approaches the capacity of non-Gaussian bosonic channels. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 51 (18), 2018, 184001 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )

2017

  • Hiai, Fumio; König, Robert; Tomamichel, Marco: Generalized Log-Majorization and Multivariate Trace Inequalities. Annales Henri Poincaré 18 (7), 2017, 2499-2521 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Huber, Stefan; König, Robert; Vershynina, Anna: Geometric inequalities from phase space translations. Journal of Mathematical Physics 58 (1), 2017, 012206 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Idel, Martin; König, Robert: On quantum additive Gaussian noise channels. 2017 more… BibTeX
  • König, Robert; Scholz, Volkher B.: Matrix product approximations to conformal field theories. Nuclear Physics B 920, 2017, 32-121 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )

2016

  • Beverland, Michael E.; Buerschaper, Oliver; König, Robert; Pastawski, Fernando; Preskill, John; Sijher, Sumit: Protected gates for topological quantum field theories. Journal of Mathematical Physics 57 (2), 2016, 022201 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • König, Robert; Scholz, Volkher B.: Matrix Product Approximations to Multipoint Functions in Two-Dimensional Conformal Field Theory. Physical Review Letters 117 (12), 2016 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )
  • Ni, Xiaotong; Pastawski, Fernando; Yoshida, Beni; König, Robert: Preparing topologically ordered states by Hamiltonian interpolation. New Journal of Physics 18 (9), 2016, 093027 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )

2015

  • König, Robert: The conditional entropy power inequality for Gaussian quantum states. Journal of Mathematical Physics 56 (2), 2015, 022201 more… BibTeX Full text ( DOI )