26th Australian Institute of Physics Congress and the Australian and New Zealand Conference on Optics and Photonics

Session

AIP QST: Annealing, criticality & nonequilibrium dynamics

QST

11 Dec 2026, 09:00

Belinda Hutchinson Building (The University of Sydney )

148. Finite-temperature criticality through quantum annealing

Francesco Campaioli (RMIT University)

11/12/2026, 09:00

AIP | Quantum Science and Technology (QST)

Invited talk

Critical phenomena at finite temperature underpin a broad range of physical systems, yet their study remains challenging due to computational bottlenecks near phase transitions. Classical Monte Carlo methods suffer from critical slowing down, while the sign problem presents a challenge in their quantum counterpart. Quantum simulators have attracted significant interest as a tool for studying...

161. Validation and calibration of quantum hardware via the quantum Mpemba effect

Francesco Campaioli (RMIT University)

11/12/2026, 09:30

AIP | Quantum Science and Technology (QST)

Contributed Oral

Validation and calibration are essential for the development of quantum computers and simulators, yet they remain challenging. Tomography provides complete information about a device but quickly becomes impractical, whereas randomized benchmarking offers a cheaper alternative that relies on simplifying assumptions about the underlying noise. These tools were developed primarily with quantum...

660. Stabilising the dispersive Quantum Rabi Model for practical digital quantum simulation of quantum phase transition behaviours

11/12/2026, 09:45

AIP | Quantum Science and Technology (QST)

Contributed Oral

Quantum phase transitions (QPTs) are interesting physical phenomena that often emerge in systems which are difficult to simulate classically, such as many-body systems in the thermodynamic limit. Recent research has shown that the Quantum Rabi Model (QRM) can exhibit signatures of a superradiant QPT [1], despite comprising only one qubit and one bosonic mode, and can be studied using...

446. Floquet engineered Nonequilibrium Dispersion Interactions and Coulomb Drag in current-carrying nanostructures

Christine Little (James Cook University)

11/12/2026, 10:00

AIP | Quantum Science and Technology (QST)

Contributed Oral

Understanding and controlling long-range interaction effects in nonequilibrium quantum systems is a key challenge in quantum physics that underpins emerging quantum technologies. This has applications across quantum transport, nanoscale force engineering and quantum information processing.

Stemming from correlated quantum fluctuations, dispersion forces between two current-carrying...

662. Variance-based schedules for Gibbs-state preparation for classical and quantum optimisation algorithms

11/12/2026, 10:15

AIP | Quantum Science and Technology (QST)

Contributed Oral

A Gibbs state assigns higher probability to low-energy configurations and lower probability to high-energy ones, making it a natural tool for searching for good solutions of optimisation problems. Classically, this idea appears in simulated annealing, where one slowly lowers the temperature using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. Quantum computation offers the possibility of speeding up parts...