Andrew Baczewski - An approach for calculating astrophysical opacities on quantum computers @IPAMUCLA

Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

Recorded 20 February 2026. Andrew Baczewski of Sandia National Laboratories presents "An approach for calculating astrophysical opacities on quantum computers" at IPAM's Bridging the Gap Between NISQ and FTQC Workshop.
Abstract: I will describe a quantum algorithmic protocol for calculating astrophysical opacities. It relies on the discretization and simulation of interacting atomic and photonic subsystems. By inferring the opacity from frequency-resolved measurements of the photon register, we can efficiently adapt the resolution to span from single features to entire spectra by adding more qubits. Detailed error budgets and resource estimates will be considered for the classically challenging problem of the opacity of solar iron.
This is joint work with Shivesh Pathak and Alina Kononov at Sandia National Labs (SNL). SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525.
Learn more online at: https://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/workshops/bridging-the-gap-between-nisq-and-ftqc/

Andrew Baczewski - An approach for calculating astrophysical opacities on quantum computers

Felipe Rincon - Tropical Ideals - IPAM at UCLA

Cami Collins - Multi-Fidelity Integrated Modeling for Fusion Device Design with FREDA - IPAM at UCLA

Tim Wildey - Inverse Uncertainty Quantification with PyApprox - IPAM at UCLA

Jingmei Qiu - Sampling-Based Adaptive Rank Integrators for Multi-scale Kinetic Models

IPAM Quantum Topology, Character Varieties and Low-Dimensional Geometry Fall 2026 Program Overview

Lin Yang - Multi-scale & -physics Modeling Fusion Energy w/ MOOSE-Based Tools: TMAP8 and SALAMANDER

Ammar Hakim - BEACONS & BEACONS-FM: Modular, Composable, Formally Verified Fusion Foundation Models

Sophia Henneberg - Optimization of Quasi-Axisymmetric Stellarator- ; Tokamak Hybrids - IPAM at UCLA

Frank Jenko - Plasma Models in Fusion Research - IPAM at UCLA

Karen Willcox - Learning Structure-exploiting Reduced Models with Operator Inference

Eduardo Siman - Image-to-Image Tropical Cyclone Wind Field Diagnosis - IPAM at UCLA