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Steven Thomson

@physicssteve.bsky.social
829 followers 330 following 88 posts

EPSRC Open Fellow in quantum condensed matter theory at the University of Edinburgh. Former Research Scientist at IBM Research, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at FU Berlin, and postdocs at Collège de France, the Ecole Polytechnique and CEA Saclay. He/him.

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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
There are lots of ways to find ground states of many-body quantum systems, but what do you do if you want to prepare an excited state? 🤔 That's the question we've addressed in a new preprint, out today: arxiv.org/abs/2508.00065
An animation showing the convergence of our new excited state preparation algorithm.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
This appeared on a wall at work recently and it makes me laugh every time I see it. Well played, anonymous art critic. 😄
A mark on a wall with a joke museum-style description attached underneath.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
I'm currently reviewing candidates who applied to my postdoc position, which has required looking back at the job ad that I wrote. I think I may have to dock myself a few points for my own "ability to communication". 😅
Image of a job advert containing a grammatical error in a requirement for clear communication skills.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
Since coming back to the UK I've been slowly getting reunited with various things I left behind when I moved to France. Today I found the hard drive with all my old recordings and songs on it. It's like a time capsule - I haven't heard some of this stuff in ten years. 🥹
A screenshot of an audio recording program.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Just leaving this here, from the very beginning of the peer review file of the new Microsoft paper (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).
Text saying "The editorial team wishes to point out that the results in this manuscript do not represent evidence for the presence of Majorana zero modes in the reported devices. The work is published for introducing a device architecture that might enable fusion experiments using future Majorana zero modes."
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
One of the fun things about being back in Scotland is being reunited with things I stored away when I left for France and haven't seen for years. Things like this...!
My PhD thesis.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Today is a good day. Huge thanks to NVIDIA for supporting my work via their Academic Grant program!
A stack of four NVIDIA GPUs to be used for my research work.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
I seem to have turned up to this afternoon's QSL seminar in camouflage. 🥷
An image of a jumper sleeve the same colour as the chair.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
As a good friend of mine said earlier today - to lost futures.
A large glass of American whiskey.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
I'm having a moral/ethical quandary about this year's APS meeting. I'm deeply uncomfortable at the idea of contributing to events in the US happening under the new political administration, but a boycott of US conferences seems like a feeble, ineffective and possibly misguided way to protest.
Decision screen for whether to participate in the APS Global Physics Summit.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
Some wonderful news this morning, courtesy of NVIDIA!
An email announcing the award of four NVIDIA RTX 6000 GPUs as part of a grant.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
I have received two ridiculously big screens and I kind of love them. 😍 (Fret not, I've moved things around to be a bit more ergonomic since this photo was taken. 🙃)
An image of a desk with two very large computer screens.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Eight years ago today...! Best eight years of my life. 🙂
An image of me at my PhD graduation.An image of me at my PhD graduation.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
It's turned into a very spin glass heavy week for me, somehow. I gave a talk on (classical) spin glasses to Kipu Quantum, attended a talk on quantum spin glasses by Bernard Derrida, and now I'm writing up notes for a mini-lecture/journal club next week on the dynamics of quantum spin glasses.
Start of some notes describing the Dynamics of a Quantum Spin Glass, with a reference to PRB 59 915 (1999).
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Looking forward to getting back to my roots tomorrow and giving a talk to the Kipu Quantum team about spin glasses!
A partial abstract for a talk on spin glasses.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Coming soon...! 😉
Image of a website showing a text prompt to add a new PhD project listing to the university website.
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
I'm always fascinated by old papers from the pre-LaTeX era. They're like a glimpse into another time when science papers were weirdly typeset and a lot harder to read. The ones with handwritten equations are my favourites. 😅
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
I thought I was kidding when I told people I was moving back to the 'frozen North'. 🥶
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Steven Thomson @physicssteve.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
I still don't know my way around the building very well, but it's hard to miss the Higgs Centre up on the fourth floor. 😅
Pair of dark blue doors with the words 'Higgs Centre' written in large silver letters.
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