Physics Faculty Natalie Klco Receives NSF Early Career Award

As quantum computers grow larger and more powerful, one of the biggest challenges is understanding and choreographing the complex patterns of quantum entanglement that make these technologies possible. 

Natalie Klco, assistant professor of Physics at Duke University and a member of the Duke Quantum Center, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award to face that challenge by looking through the lens of an unconventional source: the quantum fields that physicists use to describe the fundamental particles and forces of nature. 

Klco's research focuses on the relationship between quantum information and the mathematical framework of quantum field theories. Her group develops theoretical tools for understanding and interacting with entanglement in quantum fields, and explores how those insights can inform the design of quantum simulations of fundamental physical systems. 

“It is easy to get lost in the unfathomable complexity of entanglement within arbitrary quantum states. However, Nature is not arbitrary. Just as symmetries and conservation laws have been discovered over the centuries, we are beginning to appreciate the structures of entanglement present in the particular quantum fields permeating our world.” 
—Natalie Klco

Entanglement is one of the defining features of quantum physics. Unlike objects in the everyday world, quantum particles can become linked in ways that make them inseparable, no longer able to be faithfully described as distinct systems: The whole becomes much richer and more complex than the sum of its parts. These quantum correlations are a critical ingredient that gives quantum computers, sensors, and simulations their extraordinary potential. 

The challenge is that once you move beyond a couple of quantum bits (qubits) and incorporate classical correlations (noise) along with the quantum correlations, entanglement becomes incredibly difficult to characterize and measure. There are even states of two qutrits (three-level quantum bits) whose entanglement properties currently elude today's best classical computers.  

In this five-year project, titled “A Field Guide to Many-Body Quantum Information in Noisy Environments,” Klco seeks to identify and characterize forms of entanglement that naturally appear throughout the quantum world. The work could help researchers better understand how quantum information is distributed in large quantum simulations and guide the development of future quantum technologies. 

“There are a few ideas embedded into the ‘Field Guide’ title,” said Klco. It has a deliberate double meaning: Just as a naturalist uses a field guide to identify different species in the wild, Klco’s research is building a guide to the structures of entanglement found in Nature and in our digital representations of its simulation. At the same time, the project builds on her group's use of quantum fields themselves as a guide for discovering physically meaningful features of quantum correlations.  

“It is easy to get lost in the unfathomable complexity of entanglement within arbitrary quantum states,” said Klco. “However, nature is not arbitrary. Just as symmetries and conservation laws have been discovered over the centuries, we are beginning to appreciate the structures of entanglement present in the particular quantum fields permeating our world.” 

This CAREER project will investigate entanglement in increasingly realistic quantum fields, characterize quantum correlations present in existing quantum computing architectures, and use those insights to design more efficient quantum simulations. By combining ideas from quantum information science and subatomic physics, the research aims to reveal new ways of understanding and harnessing entanglement as a resource for computation and scientific discovery. 

In addition to its research goals, the award will support educational activities that connect students to both quantum information science and quantum field theory, helping prepare the next generation of researchers to navigate and develop new discoveries at the growing intersection of these two independently fundamental disciplines of physics. 

The NSF Early Career Awards, also known as CAREER, are among the most prestigious awards available to early-career faculty in the United States. Applications are open to all fields funded by NSF, but are reserved for pre-tenured faculty who demonstrate the potential to become long-term leaders and academic role models. These project-based awards consist of five years of research funding. As such, faculty are encouraged to submit ambitious proposals, whose results will underlie their research and education programs for years to come. 

“We are incredibly proud of Professor Klco in the Physics department,” said Chris Walter, professor of Physics and department chair. “The CAREER award is one of the most important awards you can achieve as a young faculty member. It recognizes both your potential and your previous accomplishments. The selection process involves review of your work by some of the most senior people in the field, and choosing to support her research with the CAREER shows how confident they are in Professor Klco’s future success.”