Beth Ruskai - Two Open Questions in Combinatorics Arising from Quantum State Discrimination

December 2nd, 4:00PM, Votey 207

Abstract:  Families of vectors which frm frames or t-designs arise in many contexts, including coding theory and quantum state discrimination. Two of these families are known, respectively, as Mutually Unbiased Bases (MUB) and Symmetric Informationally Complete (SIC) POVMS.  In this talk we will define both MUB’s and SIC POVM’s. In each case, there are long-standing open questions about their existence in vector spaces of a given dimension, which will be discussed.