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Colin Wilmott

Colin Wilmott

Senior Lecturer

School of Science & Technology

Staff Group(s)
Physics and Mathematics

Role

Dr Wilmott is a Lecturer in Mathematics in the School of Science and Technology. He is Module leader for Foundations and Investigations (BSc (Hons) Year One) and Mathematical Methods II (BSc (Hons) Year Two).

Dr Wilmott's research activities are directed toward quantum information and computation.

Career overview

Dr Wilmott obtained his BA and MSc from University College Cork and his PhD in Mathematics from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Research areas

Dr Wilmott is a member of the Quantum Information Science Research Group and the Intelligent Simulation, Modelling and Networking Research Group (ISMN)

Areas of research interest include algebra, combinatorics and discrete mathematics, and this serves as the departure point for main research activity in quantum computation, coding and cryptography, and entanglement theory. Some research highlights include:

  • Quantum circuit designs that illustrated group-theoretic contributions on the topic of permutation theory and an understanding that the symmetric group and its decompositions may well be enhanced by considering how to design quantum gates to realise certain subgroups of this group.
  • That the task of efficient quantum circuit design may be completely recast as a problem of period determination for linear feedback shift registers (LFSRs). This link was made via the generating function and Dr Wilmott's work compliments existing research in the context of LFSR design for classical cryptography.
  • Identification via the signature for a permutation of when it is possible for a generalized SWAP of k-qudits to be implemented using only generalized CNOTs, for certain k.
  • That sequence designs methods, such as nonlinear FSRs, trace equations, aperiodic sequences may well have interesting realisations when reinterpreted as quantum circuit designs.
  • Construction of quantum convex polytopes whose interior points can be completely classified in terms of the partial order of weak majorization.
  • Quantum state identification via convex decompositions expressed entirely terms of quantum states of a fixed entanglement type.

Opportunities to carry out postgraduate study towards an MPhil/PhD exist and further information may be obtained from the NTU Graduate School.

Sponsors and collaborators

Dr Wilmott is a former recipient of German Science Foundation (DFG) post-doctoral grant funding and also held the title of Marie Curie Fellow. Recently, Dr Wilmott was awarded a three-year EU funded post-doctoral fellowship to study quantum walks.

Publications

On a family of linear recurrences. Wilmott C, Proc. Int. Conf. Mathematical Modelling in Physical Sciences, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2013, 410 (1), 012057

Weak randomness seriously limits the security of quantum key distribution. Wilmott C, Bouda J, Pivoluska M and Plesch M, Physical Review A, 2012, 86 (6), 062308

Algorithm for characterizing stochastic local operations and classical communication classes of multiparticle entanglement. Wilmott C, Bruss D, Guehne O and Kampermann H, Physical Review A, 2012, 86 (3), 032307

On a generalized quantum swap gate. Wilmott C and Wild PR, International Journal of Quantum Information, 2012, 10 (3), 1250034

Quantum sign permutation polytopes. Wilmott C, Kampermann H and Bruß D, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 2010, 43 (50)

See all of Colin Wilmott's publications...