• Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30-4:45pm, WWH 312 (251 Mercer St)
• Instructor: Nick Spooner, office hours Wednesdays 3:30-4:30pm, WWH 303. Email: nick.spooner@nyu.edu
• There will be no final exam for this course; assessment will be conducted via midterm exam, weekly homeworks and a course project.

This course aims to provide an introduction to quantum computing and quantum information, from a computer science perspective. Topics covered include:

• Qubits, measurement and unitary transformations
• Entanglement and non-locality
• Quantum key distribution
• Quantum circuits
• Basic quantum algorithms, e.g. Simon's algorithm, Grover search, Shor's factoring algorithm
• Quantum computational complexity
• Quantum error-correction and fault tolerance

You are not required to purchase any textbook for this class. You may find the following resources helpful:

• Main textbooks:
  • [W] Thomas G. Wong, Introduction to Classical and Quantum Computing, available for free at https://www.thomaswong.net/. Provides a gentle introduction to the basics.
  • [NC] Nielsen & Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information: 10th Anniversary Edition. An in-depth and comprehensive textbook, covering in detail most of the topics in this class, and a lot more.
• Lecture notes by Ryan O'Donnell
• Lecture notes by Ronald de Wolf

Week #	Date	Title	Readings
1	Jan 23/25	Introduction, measuring a single qubit	[W] Chapter 2 and Sections 3.1, 3.2.
2	Jan 30/Feb 1	Elitzur-Vaidman bomb, quantum gates	[W] Sections 3.3 and 3.4.
3	Feb 6/8	Multi-qubit systems, and entanglement	[W] Sections 4.3 and 4.4.
4	Feb 13/15	Non-local games and teleportation	[W] Sections 6.2 and 6.5.
5	Feb 20	Quantum money and QKD	[W] Section 6.6 [NC] Section 12.6.3
	Feb 22	Mixed states and density operators	[NC] Section 2.4
6	Feb 27	Deutsch's algorithm	[W] Section 7.2
	Feb 29	Review
7	Mar 5	Midterm	(Mar 7: No class)
8	Mar 12/14	Deutsch-Josza, Simon's algorithm	[W] Section 7.3, 7.5
		Spring break
9	Mar 26/28	Classical to quantum circuits; Grover's algorithm	[W] Section 4.5, 7.6
10	Apr 2/4	QFT and Shor's algorithm	[W] Section 7.7, 7.10
11	Apr 9/11	Phase estimation	[W] Section 7.8
12	Apr 16/18	Quantum error correction	[W] Section 4.7
13	Apr 23/25	Fault tolerance
14	Apr 30/May 2	Quantum complexity theory

• Homework: There will be a homework assignment every two weeks. We strongly prefer that you write your assignments in LaTeX. Assignments will be submitted on Gradescope.
• Midterm: There will be a midterm exam.
• Report: An important assessment component of this class is the course report, due at the end of the semester. This will be a short (approximately five pages) report on some topic beyond what was covered in class. This could be original research, a literature review, or a report on some advanced topic in the textbook. This must be an individual project. A project proposal will be due early in the semester; more details to follow.
• Grade: The overall grade will be 40% homework, 20% midterm, 40% report.
• Late submissions: Late submissions of homework solutions will be graded with a 20% penalty per day of late submission. Solutions will not be graded if they are submitted later than two days after the specified deadline.
• Academic integrity: Please review the departmental academic integrity policy and the CAS academic integrity policy.
• Collaboration and plagiarism: You are free to discuss assignments with your peers, use internet and textbook resources, and seek help on Brightspace. However, all submitted work must be your own, and you must acknowledge any resources that you used. In the final report, you must include appropriate citations. Any instance of plagiarism may be subject to investigation according to University regulations.
• AI assistants: Course policies do not forbid the use of AI assistants. However, you should be careful: AI tools often produce incorrect or unsubstantiated claims. The correctness of submitted work remains your responsibility, as does appropriate citation. In particular, is not adequate to cite an AI tool as a source.
• Participation: Students are expected to attend every meeting of the class and participate in discussions, both in-class and on Brightspace.
• Religious observance: As a nonsectarian, inclusive institution, NYU policy permits members of any religious group to absent themselves from classes without penalty when required for compliance with their religious obligations. The policy and principles to be followed by students and faculty may be found in the University Calendar Policy on Religious Holidays.
• Disability disclosure: Academic accommodations are available to any student with a chronic, psychological, visual, mobility, learning disability, or who is deaf or hard of hearing. Students should register with the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities.