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Christopher K. Long

@christopher-k-long.ac
313 followers 385 following 102 posts

Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Virginia Tech, focusing on Quantum Computing. (he/him) Website: Christopher-K-Long.ac ORCiD: orcid.org/0009-0001-3230-942X

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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 2h
It felt good to hear a more positive take.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 12/10/2026
Today I started my postdoc at @virginiatech.bsky.social and my thesis became public: doi.org/10.17863/CAM... It's been a good day.
doi.org
Optimal Hamiltonian control for variational quantum algorithms: on spin-qubit quantum processors
Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) were once believed to be the fastest route to demonstrating practical quantum advantage. VQAs use a parameterized quantum circuit to perform a machine-learning ta...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 06/10/2026
You can now download the published article without the paywall here: christopher-k-long.ac/Articles/Alm...
christopher-k-long.ac
Almost sure minimality of the set of experiments with classical Kirkwood-Dirac representations ~ CKL
We show that if two d-dimensional observables are picked at random, the set of classical states of the resulting KD distribution is a minimal polytope of dimension 2(d−1).
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 06/10/2026
New personal website: christopher-k-long.ac
christopher-k-long.ac
Christopher K. Long ~ CKL
Personal website of Christopher K. Long
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 21/09/2026
Here is a practice version of my talk from last weeks Foundations of Quantum Technologies Conference at Girton College Cambridge. It is a brief overview of my PhD thesis. youtu.be/zRikXKlZ0dQ?...
youtu.be
Optimal Hamiltonian control for variational quantum algorithms
YouTube video by Christopher K. Long
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 17/09/2026
I'm sad to be missing most of the conference, but looking forward to Zooming in tomorrow. I hope you're having a great time!
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 25/08/2026
I was water skiing, and during a fall, instead of my foot binding releasing cleanly, it broke, damaging my foot. Now post surgery, it looks like I can't walk or fly for at least 6 weeks, so the start of my postdoc at @virginiatech.bsky.social will be delayed until Oct.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 25/08/2026
Since finishing my PhD viva on the 6th, with minor corrections, life has been busy. The discussion with Alex Thom and Simon Benjamin during my viva was insightful, and I'll have a better thesis as a result—thank you! My corrections are now done, but were slowed down by an accident on the 17th.
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Reposted by Christopher K. Long
Nalini Joshi @monsoon0.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Terry Tao’s @teorth.bsky.social ‘s public lecture “Mathematics In the Age of AI” #ICM2026 is now available to watch online: www.simonsfoundation.org/2026/08/13/f...
simonsfoundation.org
Watch: Fields Medalist Terence Tao on Artificial Intelligence and Why We Do Math
Watch: Fields Medalist Terence Tao on Artificial Intelligence and Why We Do Math on Simons Foundation
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 01/08/2026
I wouldn't be suprised if they end up getting trained on each others outputs.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 01/08/2026
I have been wondering whether in the changing landscape conferences might serve an even more important role going forward. Like papers used to, giving a talk and answering questions live will give authors a platform to demonstrate they understand their work and how it places in the literature.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 07/07/2026
I'm dyslexic; em dashes are great. I struggle to follow where I am in text: once I was asked, "What the f@!# is your reading age?" Visually distinct elements help me follow text—e.g., em dashes, varying paragraph shapes, and accents on imported words like "naïve", "rôle", "café", or "ansätze".
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 03/07/2026
We have just updated the arXiv with the accepted Physical Review A version so there is an open access peer-reviewed version: arxiv.org/abs/2405.17557
arxiv.org
Almost no experiments have classical Kirkwood-Dirac representations
A central problem in quantum information is determining quantum-classical boundaries. In the quasiprobability framework, a state is called classical if it is represented by a quasiprobability distribu...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 02/07/2026
I finally got around to my own summary. bsky.app/profile/chri...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 02/07/2026
Congratulations to Henrik Gothen and Yunming Qian for their first preprint and @djamilala.bsky.social for her first preprint on quantum information.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 02/07/2026
This technique is the same as we used in our recent work on magic state distillation to achieve a 42% improvement in overheads: bsky.app/profile/chri...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 02/07/2026
VQEs have 3 main problems: (i) excessive runtimes, (ii) susceptibility to noise, and (iii) optimizability. In our recent preprint (arxiv.org/abs/2606.17357), we address the first 2 without losing optimizability. We achieve this by designing pulses for 4-qubit gates that run up to 15 times faster.
arxiv.org
Pulse-optimised circuit elements for scalable and noise-resilient quantum chemistry
Useful chemistry calculations on near-term quantum processors are hindered by current algorithmic runtimes. We develop a methodology to significantly reduce these runtimes. Typically, variational quan...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 19/06/2026
It looks like @hilbertspacepost.bsky.social beat me to summarizing our new pre-print!
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 16/06/2026
The generalization from states to a complete fragment of quantum mechanics delayed our publication in PRA. Now, I am very happy with the more fleshed-out picture our article now provides: doi.org/10.1103/v7z4....
doi.org
Almost sure minimality of the set of experiments with classical Kirkwood-Dirac representations
A central problem in quantum information is determining quantum-classical boundaries. In the quasiprobability framework, a state is called classical if it is represented by a quasiprobability distribu...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 16/06/2026
For many quasiprobability distributions, the set of positive (“classical”) states is difficult to characterize. However, for a random Kirkwood–Dirac distribution, we completely characterized not only the positive states, but also the positive measurements and unitaries.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 11/06/2026
My favourite result was showing pulse optimization can cut magic state production overheads by 42%.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 11/06/2026
In our recent arXiv (arxiv.org/abs/2605.28936) we benchmarked QEC and magic state factories for spin qubits. By computing magic state production overheads as a function of initialization, gate, measurement, and decoherence times we estimated the runtimes for typical algorithms—see Fig.
Figure 2 from

Songqinghao Yang, Christopher K. Long, Rubén M. Otxoa, Prakash Murali, Crispin H. W. Barnes, & David R. M. Arvidsson-Shukur, Hardware-Tailored Resource Estimation for Magic-State Distillation on Silicon Spin Qubits, arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.28936 (2026).

Used under a CC-BY-4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Caption:

Algorithmic resource requirements. We plot the wall-clock time (horizontal axis) and the number of physical qubits (vertical axis) needed to run three different quantum algorithms. The color map indicates the fraction of the qubits used for MSD. The circles label the sparse SpinBus architecture with the standard surface code; the triangles label the SpinBus architecture with the XZZX surface code; and the squares label the dense architecture with the standard surface code. The logical operations are implemented with lattice surgery and the ‘grow-and-distill’ MSD protocol is chosen to minimize the space-time overhead.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 01/06/2026
I have had an amazing time at @cambridgephysics.bsky.social bridgephysics.bsky.social for the last 8 years! I am excited to be starting as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at @virginiatech.bsky.social with Ed Barnes and Sophia Economou in late August!
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 01/06/2026
On Friday, I submitted my PhD thesis! I'm looking forward to defending in August and sharing the thesis with the rest of you.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 16/05/2026
These rocks absolutely rock
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 15/04/2026
Poster for:

FOUNDATIONS OF QUANTUM TECHNOLOGIES

Text on poster:

FOUNDATIONS OF QUANTUM
TECHNOLOGIES
GIRTON COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
15 – 18 SEPTEMBER 2026

KEY TOPICS
•Foundations of Quantum Theory
•Witnesses, Measures and Monotones of
Nonclassical Behaviour
•Non-Classical Resources (Coherence, Contextuality,
Entanglement, Negativity)
•Quantum Measurement Theory and Back-Action
•Quantum Thermodynamics
•Decoherence and Open Quantum Systems
•Quantum Control and Hamiltonian Engineering
•Quantum Algorithms and Computational Models
•Quantum-Processor Design and Architectures
•Quantum Metrology and Sensing

INVITED SPEAKERS
Edwin Barnes (Virginia Tech)
Iman Marvian (Duke University)
Kieran Dalton (ETH, Zurich)
Gerard Milburn (National Quantum Computing Centre)
Sophia Economou (Virginia Tech)
Robert Raussendorf (Leibniz University)
Giulia Ferrini (Chalmers University)
Aephraim Steinberg (University of Toronto)
Andrew Jordan (Chapman University)
Jayne Thompson (Nanyang Technological University)
Seth Lloyd (MIT)
Nicole Yunger Halpern (NIST)
Matteo Lostaglio (PsiQuantum)

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
www.girton.cam.ac.uk/events/foundations-quantum-technologies
Submission deadline: 4th of May 2026, 23:59 AoE
(flash talks & posters encouraged for ECRs/students)
General Enquiries: quantum@girton.cam.ac.uk

REGISTRATION & MORE
INFORMATION: [QR-code]
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 10/04/2026
The University of Cambridge is hosting a Foundations of Quantum Technologies conference on September 15–18th to mark the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of modern quantum mechanics. Abstract submissions for talks and posters close May 4th. More details: www.girton.cam.ac.uk/events/found...
girton.cam.ac.uk
Foundations of Quantum Technologies
Girton College, University of Cambridge, is hosting a conference to mark the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of modern quantum mechanics.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 07/04/2026
Screenings are happening across the UK over the next few months and are free to attend. You can find your closest screening here: www.nebriefing.org/screening-map
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 01/04/2026
Maybe you then need antiqubits: arxiv.org/abs/2506.04315
arxiv.org
Superconducting antiqubits achieve optimal phase estimation via unitary inversion
A positron is equivalent to an electron traveling backward through time. Casting transmon superconducting qubits as akin to electrons, we simulate a positron with a transmon subject to particular reso...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 08/02/2026
[1] G. K. Pullum, 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Apr. 2009. Original url: www.chronicle.com/article/50-y.... PDF download from @archive.org (no sign-in required): web.archive.org/web/20260208.... [2] @archive.org: web.archive.org/web/20220811... 3/3
web.archive.org
What’s purportedly wrong with Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style”?
I was reading the comments on this answer where several users claimed that Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style was “misinformed, hypocritical, and wrong” and “flat-out wrong or totally mislead...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 08/02/2026
I found Pullum's critical essay, 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice, helpful in discerning Strunk & White's rules from suggestions [1]. Pullum's essay is heavy-handed, and a counter-critique can be found in the following Stack Exchange answer: english.stackexchange.com/a/3223/695205 [2]. 2/3
english.stackexchange.com
What’s purportedly wrong with Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style”?
I was reading the comments on this answer where several users claimed that Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style was “misinformed, hypocritical, and wrong” and “flat-out wrong or totally mislead...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 08/02/2026
I finally read The Elements of Style by Strunk & White; I should have read it on day one of my PhD. At least I read it before writing my thesis. A free copy can be found on Kobo: www.kobo.com/ebook/the-el.... 1/3
kobo.com
The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition ebook by William Strunk Jr - Rakuten Kobo
Read "The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition" by William Strunk Jr available from Rakuten Kobo. 'The Elements of Style' (1918), by William Strunk, Jr., is an American English writing style guide. It is...
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 08/02/2026
I second the Hyperion Cantos
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 08/02/2026
I've only read a couple of books from the Hainish Cycle; now I'm really excited for the rest. Maybe the dispossessed will have to be next. In the left hand of darkness at first names are used but not explained. After a few chapters some you can infer some and some are explained.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 31/12/2025
Unfortunately, it looks like you need third-party apps to create markdown-style links on @bsky.app:
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 31/12/2025
I have finally finished mirroring my scientific @github.com repositories to @gitlab.com. Here is a tutorial by [justncodes](github.com/justncodes) which I modified: github.com/Christopher-...
github.com
GitHub - Christopher-K-Long/GitLab-Repo-Sync: Tutorial for syncing GitHub repos to GitLab with a GitLab CI triggered by GitHub Webhook.
Tutorial for syncing GitHub repos to GitLab with a GitLab CI triggered by GitHub Webhook. - Christopher-K-Long/GitLab-Repo-Sync
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 27/12/2025
Congrats on the successful year @mouhaqh.bsky.social, looks like I should your articles a read when I'm back to work!
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 22/12/2025
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 22/12/2025
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 22/12/2025
Now is not a good time for citations: Miss-citing online-only journals and Google Scholar indexing non-existent articles cited by hallucinating LLMs. Maybe the silver lining is that this will undermine metrics such as citation counts and h-indices, forcing academics to be judged more holistically.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 30/11/2025
For example, numerical quantum optimal control techniques such as GRAPE and CRAB fall within the framework of VQAs and are used ubiquitously today to tune quantum processors.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 30/11/2025
My point is I wouldn't declare VQAs doomed—that's too strong. Most no-go theorems have loopholes and assumptions. They tell us where it is still worth looking. I would just say that VQAs' use cases are increasingly constrained, and so there are probably more promising directions.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 30/11/2025
Given the drastic improvements in noise tolerance of VQE algorithms since colleagues and I wrote [doi:10.1038/s41534-024-00808-x](doi.org/10.1038/s415...), it may even be possible to use coherently executed shots to improve the runtime of expectation value estimation.
doi.org
Quantifying the effect of gate errors on variational quantum eigensolvers for quantum chemistry - npj Quantum Information
npj Quantum Information - Quantifying the effect of gate errors on variational quantum eigensolvers for quantum chemistry
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 30/11/2025
The large shot count is a problem. I hope that better techniques for estimating expectation values will be developed.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 30/11/2025
Given that many alternative methods for eigenvalue estimation require polynomial overlap between the initial state and the eigenstate, it may be that VQAs are still needed for initial-state preparation.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 29/11/2025
Guarantees are good but not vital. I think once there is good enough hardware someone will run the best known VQE for a molecule (like FeMoco) and it will either work or it won't. They will probably use tricks like adaptivity, pulse optimization, and error mitigation as asymptotics won't matter.
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 29/11/2025
Thank you for the reference, I will add it to the read list
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 29/11/2025
I agree with this for non-adaptive VQAs. Last I checked, no one had proved barren plateaus cause problems for adaptive VQAs—[numerical evidence](doi.org/10.1038/s415...) suggests the contrary. There is still some life in VQAs. Nonetheless, I'm glad to have diversified my research away from VQAs.
doi.org
Adaptive, problem-tailored variational quantum eigensolver mitigates rough parameter landscapes and barren plateaus - npj Quantum Information
npj Quantum Information - Adaptive, problem-tailored variational quantum eigensolver mitigates rough parameter landscapes and barren plateaus
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 11/11/2025
Wish I could have gone, looking forward to #QuiDiQua4!
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Christopher K. Long @christopher-k-long.ac · 07/11/2025
Thank you for sharing this! Please give us an update of you hear back from Springer Nature.
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