Chinmay Nirkhe

Research Staff Scientist
IBM Quantum, MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab

Hello, I am currently a research staff scientist with IBM Quantum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My research interests are in theoretical computer science centered around quantum information and hardness of approximation. Recently, I've been thinking about the quantum PCP conjecture and the description complexity of quantum states.

In Autumn 2024, I will be joining the CS department (Allen School) at the University of Washington as an assistant professor! Please apply to the Allen School graduate program if you are interested in being advised by me and send me an email at the UW address listed below.

Previously, I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Berkeley in 2022 and my B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Caltech in 2017. I am originally from the greater Seattle area, having gone to primary and secondary school in Sammamish and Seattle. I am elated to be returning to the Pacific Northwest.

Contact Information

• Email: nirkhe@ibm.com | nirkhe@cs.washington.edu
• Office: 314 Main Street Cambridge, Mass.
• Pronouns: he/him

Select Publications

• NLTS Hamiltonians from good quantum codes
  Anurag Anshu, Nikolas Breuckmann, and Chinmay Nirkhe.
  QIP 2023 (Plenary Talk). CCC 2023 (Invited Talk). STOC 2023.
  [arXiv:2206.13228] [News Article] [Simons Institute Blog Post] [Proceedings Version]
• A distribution testing oracle separation between QMA and QCMA
  Anand Natarajan and Chinmay Nirkhe.
  CCC 2023. Quantum 2023.
  [arXiv:2210.15380] [Proceedings Version]
• Quantum search-to-decision and the state synthesis problem
  Sandy Irani, Anand Natarajan, Chinmay Nirkhe, Sujit Rao, and Henry Yuen.
  QIP 2022. CCC 2022.
  [arXiv:2111.02999] [Proceedings Version]
• Circuit lower bounds for low-energy states of quantum code Hamiltonians
  Anurag Anshu and Chinmay Nirkhe.
  ITCS 2022. QIP 2021. Theory of Computing 2022.
  [arXiv:2011.02044] [Proceedings Version]
• On the complexity and verification of random circuit sampling
  Adam Bouland, Bill Fefferman, Chinmay Nirkhe, and Umesh Vazirani.
  Nature Physics 2018. ITCS 2019. QIP 2019.
  [arXiv:1803.04402] [Journal Version] [News Article]

All Publications and Talks (click here)

Education and Past Employment

• IBM Quantum
  Research Staff Scientist
  MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab Cambridge, Mass. 2022 - 2024.
• University of California, Berkeley
  Ph.D. Computer Science. 2017 - 2022.
  Advisor: Umesh Vazirani
  Thesis: Lower bounds on the complexity of quantum proofs
• California Institute of Technology
  B.S. Mathematics, B.S. Computer Science. 2013 - 2017.
  

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