Friday Quantum Seminar: Laura Shou

Title:  Entanglement and circuit complexity in finite-depth random linear optical networks
Speaker:  Laura Shou (UMD, Physics Department)
Date & Time:  April 17, 2026, 12:00pm
Where to Attend:  ATL 2400

We study the growth of entanglement and circuit complexity in random passive linear optical networks as a function of the circuit depth. For entanglement dynamics, we start with an initial Gaussian state with all n modes squeezed. For random brickwall circuits, we show that entanglement, as measured by the Rényi-2 entropy, grows at most diffusively as a function of the depth. In the other direction, for arbitrary circuit geometries we prove bounds on depths which ensure the average subsystem entanglement reaches within a constant factor of the maximum value in all subsystems, and bounds which ensure closeness of the random linear optical unitary to a Haar random unitary in L2 Wasserstein distance. We also consider robust circuit complexity for random one-dimensional brickwall circuits, as measured by the minimum number of gates required in any circuit that approximately implements the linear optical unitary. Viewing this as a function of the number of modes and the circuit depth, we show the robust circuit complexity for random one-dimensional brickwall circuits scales at most diffusively in the depth with high probability. The corresponding Gaussian unitary Ũ for the approximate implementation retains high output fidelity |⟨ψ|U^†Ũ |ψ⟩|^2 for pure states |ψ⟩ with constrained expected photon-number.

Pizza and drinks will be served after the seminar in ATL 2117.