Frank Verstraete (born November 1972) is a Belgian expert in quantum physics. He holds a professorship in quantum physics at the mathematics department of the University of Cambridge and is also a professor in the physics department of Ghent University. His work focuses on how quantum information theory connects with the study of many-body quantum systems. He was one of the first scientists to support the use of special tools called tensor networks and the study of entanglement in these systems.

Education and career

Verstraete was born in 1972. He is the son of Belgian doctors and attended the Abdijschool van Zevenkerken [nl]. He earned a degree in electrical engineering from Louvain and a Master's degree in Physics from Ghent University. In 2002, he completed his PhD on the topic of quantum entanglement at KU Leuven, under the guidance of Bart De Moor and Henri Verschelde. He helped to create a way to use quantum entanglement as a unifying idea for studying strongly interacting quantum many-body systems. These systems are very difficult to analyze but are also very useful for future technologies like quantum computers.

From 2002 to 2004, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, in the group of Ignacio Cirac. From 2004 to 2006, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology. In 2006, he became a full professor and took the position of chair in theoretical quantum nanophysics at the University of Vienna. In 2012, he returned to Ghent University with a special grant called the Odysseus grant from the FWO. There, he created a research group that studies how entanglement can be used in quantum many-body systems. In 2022, he started holding the chair of Quantum Physics at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of the University of Cambridge.

Scientific work

Among his important achievements is the discovery that there are nine distinct ways (grouped into categories called equivalence classes under stochastic LOCC operations, or SLOCC) to entangle four qubits. He also showed theoretically that a universal quantum computer can be built using energy dissipation. Additionally, he created a quantum version of the classical Metropolis algorithm to find the lowest energy states of complex systems. He was a key figure in developing modern methods to study quantum many-body systems using tools like Matrix product states (MPS), Tensor network states, and Projected entangled pair states (PEPS). These methods have been applied to problems in condensed-matter physics, many-body physics, and quantum field theory. He was one of the first to introduce fermionic PEPS, continuous MPS, and matrix product operators. He also co-authored a widely read review article on these topics.

Awards

Verstraete has won many awards, including the Hermann Kümmel early achievement award in many-body physics, the Lieben Prize in 2009, and the Francqui Prize in 2018. He also holds a distinguished visiting research chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Books

He wrote a science book that is easy to read with Céline Broeckaert. The book is called Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics — and Everyone Still Needs to Know Something About It (Pan Books). The book became very popular and has been translated into 8 languages. The English version was introduced at the Royal Institution.

Selected publications

• A study of entanglement in quantum information theory, Ph.D. Thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2002.
• Verstraete, Frank; Dehaene, J.; de Moor, B.; Verschelde, H. (2002). "Four qubits can be entangled in nine different ways". Phys. Rev. A. 65 (5) 052112. arXiv: quant-ph/0109033. Bibcode: 2002PhRvA..65e2112V. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.65.052112. S2CID 38168590.
• Verstraete, F.; Garcia-Ripoll, J. J.; Cirac, J. I. (2004). "Matrix Product Density Operators: Simulation of Finite-Temperature and Dissipative Systems". Phys. Rev. Lett. 93 (20) 207204. arXiv: cond-mat/0406426. Bibcode: 2004PhRvL..93t7204V. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.207204. PMID 15600964. S2CID 36218923.
• Verstraete, F.; Wolf, M. M.; Cirac, J. Ignacio (2009). "Quantum computation and quantum-state engineering driven by dissipation". Nature Physics. 5 (9): 633–636. arXiv: 0803.1447. Bibcode: 2009NatPh…5..633V. doi: 10.1038/nphys1342.
• Kraus, C. V.; Schuch, N.; Verstraete, F.; Cirac, J. I. (2010). "Fermionic projected entangled pair states". Phys. Rev. A. 81 (5) 052338. arXiv: 0904.4667. Bibcode: 2010PhRvA..81e2338K. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.81.052338. S2CID 56378408.
• Verstraete, F.; Cirac, J. I.; Murg, V. (2008). "Matrix Product States, Projected Entangled Pair States, and variational renormalization group methods for quantum spin systems". Adv. Phys. 57 (2): 143–224. arXiv: 0907.2796. Bibcode: 2008AdPhy..57..143V. doi: 10.1080/14789940801912366. S2CID 17208624.
• Verstraete, F.; Cirac, J. I. (2010). "Continuous Matrix Product States for Quantum Fields" (PDF). Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 (19) 190405. arXiv: 1002.1824. Bibcode: 2010PhRvL.104s0405V. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.190405. PMID 20866951. S2CID 26530437.
• Haegeman, J; Lubich, C; Oseledets, I; Vandereycken, B; Verstraete, F (2016).