Andrew Childs

amchilds's picture
Professor
3359 Atlantic Building
(301) 405-2329

Andrew Childs is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). He was a Co-Director of QuICS from 2014-2024, and is the director of the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Robust Quantum Simulation.

Childs's research interests are in the theory of quantum information processing, especially quantum algorithms. He has explored the computational power of quantum walk, providing an example of exponential speedup, demonstrating computational universality, and constructing algorithms for problems including search and formula evaluation. Childs has also developed fast quantum algorithms for simulating Hamiltonian dynamics. His other areas of interest include quantum query complexity and quantum algorithms for algebraic problems.

Before coming to UMD, Childs was a DuBridge Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech from 2004-2007 and a faculty member in Combinatorics & Optimization and the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo from 2007-2014. Childs received his doctorate in physics from MIT in 2004.

Courses

Publications

2018

A. M. Childs, Maslov, D., Nam, Y., Ross, N. J., and Su, Y., Toward the first quantum simulation with quantum speedup, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 115 , pp. 9456-9461, 2018.

2017

A. M. Childs and Li, T., Efficient simulation of sparse Markovian quantum dynamics, Quantum Information and Computation, vol. 17, pp. 901-947, 2017.

2016

A. M. Childs, van Dam, W., Hung, S. - H., and Shparlinski, I. E., Optimal quantum algorithm for polynomial interpolation, 43rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2016), vol. 55, p. 16:1--16:13, 2016.
A. M. Childs, Gosset, D., and Webb, Z., Complexity of the XY antiferromagnet at fixed magnetization, Quantum Information and Computation, vol. 16, no. 1-2, pp. 1-18, 2016.

2015

A. M. Childs, Gosset, D., Nagaj, D., Raha, M., and Webb, Z., Momentum switches, Quantum Information and Computation, vol. 15, no. 7-8, pp. 601-621, 2015.
D. W. Berry, Childs, A. M., and Kothari, R., Hamiltonian simulation with nearly optimal dependence on all parameters, Proceedings of the 56th IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, pp. 792-809, 2015.

2014

D. J. Brod and Childs, A. M., The computational power of matchgates and the XY interaction on arbitrary graphs, Quantum Information and Computation, vol. 14, no. 11-12, pp. 901-916, 2014.
A. M. Childs, Gosset, D., and Webb, Z., The Bose-Hubbard model is QMA-complete, Proceedings of the 41st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2014), vol. 8572, pp. 308-319, 2014.
D. W. Berry, Childs, A. M., Cleve, R., Kothari, R., and Somma, R. D., Exponential improvement in precision for simulating sparse Hamiltonians, Proceedings of the 46th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2014), pp. 283-292, 2014.
A. M. Childs and Ivanyos, G., Quantum computation of discrete logarithms in semigroups, Journal of Mathematical Cryptology, vol. 8, no. 4, 2014.
A. M. Childs, Jao, D., and Soukharev, V., Constructing elliptic curve isogenies in quantum subexponential time, Journal of Mathematical Cryptology, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1 - 29, 2014.

2013

A. M. Childs, Leung, D., Mancinska, L., and Ozols, M., A framework for bounding nonlocality of state discrimination, Communications in Mathematical Physics, vol. 323, no. 3, pp. 1121 - 1153, 2013.