The same physics that may have seeded cosmic strings, domain walls, and other topological relics during symmetry-breaking transitions in the early universe governs any system driven through a critical point: the Kibble–Zurek mechanism, which predicts a universal power- law scaling of defect density set only by critical exponents, independent of microscopic details. This talk shows how programmable quantum computers now serve as controllable, tabletop analogs of early-universe phase transitions, letting us measure these predictions directly. Quantum annealers realizing the transverse- field Ising model recovered the Kibble–Zurek scaling and—going beyond the mean—mapped the full statistics of defect production, exposing universality in higher cumulants and favoring a genuinely quantum description. Digital superconducting processors with up to 156 qubits push into fast-quench regimes where scaling breaks into a plateau and into hard-to-simulate two-dimensional geometries, while counterdiabatic protocols demonstrate active control over defect formation.

（講演者の紹介）
Adolfo del Campo is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Luxembourg. He is notable as one of the pioneers of shortcuts to adiabaticity in quantum control. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2023 in the Division of Quantum Information.vBefore moving to Luxembourg, he was a J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and a distinguished research professor at the Donostia International Physics Center. During his career, del Campo has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers, with seminal contributions to shortcuts to adiabaticity in quantum control, quantum speed limits, critical phenomena and topological defects, and quantum optimization algorithms.

ルクセンブルク大学理論物理学・教授および量子情報科学・技術グループ・ディレクターのAdolfo del
Campo博士を招聘し、談話会を開催いたします。Campo博士は、量子情報分野への先駆的貢献が評価され、2023年American Physical Societyフェローに選出されました。量子制御、量子情報、非平衡量子ダイナミクス、量子相転移を専門分野としており、物理学の基礎を探求し、新たな量子技術の発展に取り組まれています。