Papers grouped by theme, with links to arXiv (and publication/conference venue where noted). * denotes first authorship or equal contribution. A chronological list also appears on arXiv.

No-go theorems for noisy quantum circuits

Limits on what noisy quantum circuits can do—and when classical simulation or memory barriers kick in.

• Limitations of noisy geometrically local quantum circuits* — TQC 2026 (with Jon Nelson, Michael J. Gullans)
• Non-Clifford gates are required for long-term memory* — CCC 2026, QCTiP 2026 (with Jon Nelson, Michael J. Gullans)
• Polynomial-time classical simulation of noisy quantum circuits with naturally fault-tolerant gates* — SODA 2026, QCTiP 2026 (with Jon Nelson, Dominik Hangleiter, Michael J. Gullans)
• Polynomial-time classical simulation of noisy IQP circuits with constant depth* — SODA 2025, TQC 2024 (with James D. Watson, Yi-Kai Liu)

Quantum algorithms for optimization problems

Gibbs-state sampling, variational landscapes, and compiling QAOA-style protocols for hardware.

• Gibbs sampling gives quantum advantage at constant temperatures with O(1)-local Hamiltonians* — Quantum 10, 1981 (2026) (with James D. Watson)
• Trainability barriers in low-depth QAOA landscapes* — ACM Computing Frontiers 2024 (with John Golden, Andreas Bärtschi, Stephan Eidenbenz)
• Generating target graph couplings for QAOA from native quantum hardware couplings* — Phys. Rev. A 106, 022606 (2022) (with Jai Moondra, Bryan Gard, Swati Gupta, Creston D. Herold)

Numerical studies of noisy random quantum circuits

Simulations of random circuits under noise, including encoding transitions and measurement-induced entanglement.

• Noise-induced contraction of MPO truncation errors in noisy random circuits and Lindbladian dynamics (with Zhi-Yuan Wei, Jon Nelson, Daniel Malz, Michael J. Gullans, Alexey V. Gorshkov)
• Measurement-induced entanglement in noisy 2D random Clifford circuits (with Zhi-Yuan Wei, Jon Nelson, Esther Cruz, Alexey V. Gorshkov, Michael J. Gullans, Daniel Malz)
• Error correction phase transition in noisy random quantum circuits* — QCTiP 2026 (with Jon Nelson, Michael J. Gullans)