The journal club is similar to the main PQM discussion group, with one crucial difference: attendance is limited to students and postdoctoral researchers. It has been active since its initial creation in 2019, on initiative of our (now graduated) PhD student Leon Schoonderwoerd. The main purpose of the journal club is to improve cohesion and discussion between these junior researchers in an informal context.

We aim to meet once a week for discussions. These can be a formal discussion of a particular research topic, a student-led presentation or seminar, a cross-disciplinary talk, or an informal chat about what research we have been up to recently.

For more information, or if you have suggestions for events/topics, please contact Joshua Tucker .

Schedule for Term 3 / Summer 2026

(organised by Joshua Tucker)

This term Journal Club is scheduled for 12pm-1pm every Friday.

24/04/26 – State Amplification by Lee Armstrong

01/05/26 – The Geometry behind Grovers by Diksha Guatum

08/05/26 – MPhys Presentations Practice I

15/05/26 – MPhys Presentations Practice II

22/05/26 – From Solid State to Condensed Matter Systems by Alex Appleby

29/05/26 – Planning a thesis by Joshua Tucker

5/06/26 – TBD

12/06/26 – Density Matrix Approach to QM by Chris Weeks

19/06/26 – Research Recap Discussion

Schedule for Term 2 / Spring 2026

(organised by Joshua Tucker)

This term Journal Club is scheduled for 11-12 every Friday.

• 16/01/26 – Welcome Back and Informal Discussion
• 23/01/26 – “Second Quantizaion” by Joseph Chapman
• 30/01/26 – “Quantum Information Theory II” by Joshua Tucker
• 6/02/26 – Cross-discipline talk by Holly Stokes-Geddes
• 13/02/26 – “The Ising Model “- Joseph Chapman
• 20/02/26 – How to keep up with the literature
• 27/02/26 – Talk by Lee Armstrong
• 13/03/26 – “Quantum advantage in Graph Domination” by Chris Weeks
• 20/03/26 – “Small world networks” – Joshua Tucker
• 27/03/26 – Final Session of Term

Schedule for Term 1 / Fall 2025

(organised by Joshua Tucker)

This term Journal Club is scheduled for 11-12 every Friday.

• 10/10/25 – Introductions and informal discussion
• 17/10/25 – Paper Roulette, Managing Citations and how to use KAR
• 24/10/25 – “Quantum Games” by Joshua Tucker
• 31/10/25 – How to create a good presentation
• 7/11/25- “Classical to Quantum – Lagrangian Mechanics” by Joshua Tucker and Joseph Chapman
• 21/11/25 – “Quantum Bitcoin Mining Part 1” by Lee Armstrong
• 28/11/25 – “Quantum Bitcoin Mining Part 2” by Diksha Gautum

 

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Past Years Events

Here, one can find a selection of past events run by the journal club. This should provide a good example of what can be expected for the year.

• 07/03/25 – “Introduction to Information Theory” by Joshua Tucker
• 28/02/25 – “Gentle Introduction to QFT” by Joseph Chapman
• 09/11/2022 – Many-body physics with arrays of individual Rydberg atoms by Ciprian-Cristian Vijeu
• 03/11/2021 — Johnathan Martin (discussing his recent work: Bouncing in an oscillatory gravitational field)
• 10/11/2021 — Holly McPhillips (presenting materials exhibiting magnetoelectric effect: Fe₂Mo₃O₈ and Co₂Mo₃O₈)
• 17/11/2021 — Tymoteusz Tula (introduction to Tensor Networks: link to notes)
• 24/11/2021 — Johnathan Martin (discussing quantum Cheshire Cat effect: A dynamical quantum Cheshire Cat effect and implications for counterfactual communication)
• 08/12/2021 — James Neil (discussing article about Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerators: Optimum operating regimes of common paramagnetic refrigerants)