Title: Exploring Magic in Quantum Computers and Many-Body Systems Speaker: Tobias Haug (Technology Innovation Institute) Date & Time: September 23, 2026, 11:00am Where to Attend: ATL 3100A and Virtual Via Zoom: https://umd.zoom.us/j/3953943156
Nonstabilizerness, or “magic,” quantifies the non-Clifford resources underlying quantum computation and provides a useful lens for understanding quantum computational complexity. Despite its fundamental importance, characterizing magic has traditionally been limited to relatively small systems. In this seminar, I will present efficient methods for studying magic in quantum circuits and many-body systems, revealing connections between magic, entanglement, and computational complexity. I will also discuss how magic behaves in critical quantum systems and how universal structures emerge in nonequilibrium quantum dynamics. Finally, I will describe an approach that combines Clifford circuits with matrix product states, enabling efficient simulation of quantum states that can simultaneously exhibit strong nonstabilizerness and volume-law entanglement. Together, these results illustrate how magic can serve not only as a computational resource, but also as a framework for probing the complexity of quantum many-body systems.
Tobias Haug is a Lead Researcher at the Quantum Research Center at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi, UAE. His research lies at the intersection of quantum information, quantum computation, and many-body physics, with particular interests in quantum error correction, quantum resource theories, and quantum machine learning. He received his PhD from the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore in 2021 and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London.
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