Text book
Preskill's book provides background and context to the material covered in the lectures and exercise classes. It also contains much additional material that goes beyond the course and will not be examinated.
- John Preskill, Quantum Information chapters 1-6 and chapter 7
- additional background material (with updates to some of the chapters in Preskill)
Exercises
The exercise classes are the most important part of the course, and the three problem sets are representative for the written exam. Two problems in each set are marked as "homework". You are requested to submit your detailed solution of these two problems to the course assistants at the start of the class, who will then grade each with "pass" or "fail". Each "pass" gives you 1/6 of a bonus point for the written exam on 2 November, 2026, provided that the pre-bonus exam grade is at least 5.5.
Dates & Topics
Monday 31 August 9.00-11.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 lecture 0: linear algebra refresher
linear algebra notes Monday 7 September 9.00-11.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 cancelled Monday 14 September 9.00-11.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 lecture 1: qubits, Bloch sphere, fidelity, quantum gates (Pauli, Hadamard, Toffoli, CNOT), density matrix, pure vs. mixed states
Preskill 2.1-2.3, 4.1.1, 6.2.0 (you may skip 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.3.3) (lecture notes, Bloch sphere formulas --- recording part a and recording part b) Monday 14 September 11.00-13.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 exercise class 0 linear algebra problem set (no homework) Monday 21 September 9.00-11.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 exercise class 1 problems 1-3; homework 1b + 2b Monday 28 September 9.00-11.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 lecture 2: entanglement, Schmidt decomposition, concurrence, teleportation, Bell states, Bell inequality, no-cloning theorem
Preskill 2.4, 4.1, 4.2.3, 4.2.4 (lecture notes --- recording part a and recording part b --- Bell state notebook) Monday 5 October 9.00-11.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 lecture 3: quantum key distribution, quantum algorithms (Deutsch-Jozsa, Simon, Grover), quantum error correction
Preskill 4.2.2, 6.3-6.4, 7.1 (lecture notes --- recording part a and recording part b) Monday 5 October 11.00-13.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 exercise class 2 problems 4-6; homework 4b + 5b Monday 12 October 9.00-11.00 Gorlaeus BW.0.31 excercise class 3 problems 7-9; homework 8b + 9b
Exam: Monday 2 November 2026 9:00 - 12:00 Retake: Tuesday 1 December 2026 15:15 - 18:15