Ahmedabad Student Wins Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Award at the California Institute of Technology

Freya Shah, BS (Honours) Class of 2025, received the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) award at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the summer of 2024. She will work on a Quantum Machine Learning project with Professor Anima Anandkumar, Bren Professor of Computing at California Institute of Technology. 

Freya’s research focuses on using Fourier Neural Operators (FNO), a math tool for Quantum Applications. As a mathematical tool, FNOs can learn mappings between infinite-dimensional spaces of functions and are discretisation-invariant.

Freya points out that FNOs demonstrate zero-shot super-resolution, that is, they can be trained on lower resolution and tested on higher resolution data with the same error rates. One of the key benefits of FNOs is their speed, which can be up to three orders of magnitude faster than traditional neural networks. Her project at Caltech is slated to employ FNOs on canonical spin systems like the Ising Model and the Heisenberg Model, which play substantive roles in various scientific applications, including quantum information theory, condensed matter physics, and quantum chemistry.

Quantum physics typically involves the simulation of problems that require large-dimensional spaces and intricate dynamics, demanding huge computational power. FNOs have the potential to be a promising tool for simulation in quantum physics and quantum information science due to their ability to perform evaluations at higher resolutions in spite of being trained at lower resolutions. Spin systems like Ising Model and Heisenberg Model act as test cases and provide a structured environment for the FNO to learn the dynamics.

Freya’s research at Caltech will also explore if FNOs can learn the underlying quantum dynamics of these structured spin systems to generalise across similar unseen problems.

Freya Shah has previously engaged in research experiences at Harvard University and the University of Waterloo, making this her third research endeavour.

The SURF programme at Caltech gives students an opportunity to conduct research under the guidance of experienced mentors working at the frontier of their fields.