Minutes 02/14/2022

Date

Feb 14, 2022

Attendees

C. Bayram, U. Bhowmik, S. Bogdanov, P. Dragic, J. Kim, V. Kindratenko, E. Kudeki, K. Levchenko, S. Lumetta, U. Ravaioli, J. Schuh.  Guest: Eric Chitambar.

The first part of the meeting was spent discussing the proposal for permanent course ECE 405 "Manipulating Quantum Systems", submitted by Simeon Bogdanov.  Simeon introduced the course and discussed the relationship with the sequence of courses which are being developed to create a quantum information curriculum,  Together ECE 404 (discussed later in this meeting) and ECE 406 (approved by the curriculum committee in Fall and currently under review for final approval) the course completes a portfolio of offerings aimed at the advanced seniors and beginning Master's students.  Both ECE 404 and ECE 405 are being submitted for permanent course approval and for offering in Fall 2022 (as temporary offerings if not receiving approval by campus in the meantime) which is earlier than usual.  Most new courses are taught for a third time as ECE 498 at the same time permanent course approval is submitted, although earlier submission is certainly allowed.  The reason for this is in response to a college initiative for graduate certificate programs (CERT) which has tight deadline and requires proposed courses to be at least submitted for approval at the College level at the time of the certificate proposal submission.  The Physics Department will provide 500-level more advanced courses for the certificate.  Although this is under the purview of the Graduate Committee, approval by the Curriculum Committee must come first for 400-level courses open to undergraduates.  The course proposal also indicates clearly possible future changes in the introductory topics as other courses get established, providing earlier opportunities to learn propaedeutic material in the quantum area.  Simeon indicated that this course is oriented toward practical applications for implementation of qubits.  The title of the course might be change to Quantum Systems II, although the caveat is that this course is self-contained and that title might require credits for Quantum Systems I, although that is not the case.  There was a question regarding the possibility of coupling a laboratory component to the course.  This might be possible mainly for optical applications, leveraging existing lab facilities.  At the same time it would be possible to access the online IBM facilities which are open to public access for computational experimentation.  The course was well received by the committee and formal vote for approval will take place once the MNTL area committee completes it review and provides their approval.  Eric Chitambar joined at 3:30pm to introduce his proposal for the permanent course ECE 404 "Quantum Information Theory".  This proposal will be reviewed by the Communications and Control area committee.  Much of the discussion complemented the previous one for ECE 405.  Also this proposal was well received by the curriculum committee and formal voting will also be deferred until approval is received by the area committee.  Eric will check in the meantime if an extension for the CERT proposal is possible.