This is an introductory course on Quantum Computation and Information, with a target to PhD Students in Physics. The only prerequisite, however, is a course in Quantum Mechanics. As such, Master students in their final year should be able to follow the lectures. 

The main references I have followed in preparing these lectures are David Mermin's book Quantum Computer Science and a few other standard reference books (details given in the lecture notes). Lecture notes will be given.

The content of the Course is roughly the following:

1. Introduction
2. Introduction to classical and quantum gates
3. Overview of classical computation with digital gates
4. Quantum Computation: generalities and simple quantum algorithms (Deutsch, Bernstein-Vazirani)
5. Shor's Quantum Fourier Transform algorithm
6. Grover's searching with a Quantum Computer 
7. Quantum Cryptography
8. Hardware implementations
9. Open Quantum Systems: decoherence, quantum maps, Lindblad equation, quantum Master equation, ...  
10. Quantum Error correction

The course is scheduled, this year, for a total of 24 lectures, worth 6 CFU. The first part of the course from point 1 to 8 is worth 4 CFU. The additional lectures from point 9 onwards are worth 2 CFU. 

With the help of students with a python familiarity, we will have practical sessions using Jupyther and Qiskit. 

Please send an email to santoro@sissa.it if you want your email address added to the list of participants.