Alexander
(Sascha)
Schmidhuber

Ph.D. Student
MIT
alexsc (at) mit (dot) edu


About Me

I am a PhD student at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics, co-advised by Aram Harrow and Seth Lloyd. I am broadly interested in the intersection of theoretical physics and theoretical computer science, with a focus on quantum computing.

I obtained a Bachelor's and Master's degree from ETH Zürich in Switzerland, where I studied physics and mathematics. Before joining MIT, I spent a year at Google Quantum AI in California.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2023 -

Ph.D. in Physics. GPA 5.00/5.00.

ETH Zürich 2018 - 2022

M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Physics. With Distinction. Ranked 1st in class.

News

Publications

  1. A quantum algorithm for Khovanov homology
    Preprint (2025)

  2. Phase estimation with partially randomized time evolution
    Preprint (2025)

  3. Quantum computing and persistence in topological data analysis
    Preprint (2024)

  4. Classically estimating observables of noiseless quantum circuits
    Preprint (2024)

  5. Optimization by decoded quantum interferometry
    Preprint (2024). Invited Plenary Talk at QIP'25

  6. Quartic quantum speedups for planted inference
    Alexander Schmidhuber, Ryan O'Donnell, Robin Kothari, Ryan Babbush
    Preprint (2024), To be presented at QIP'25 and SODA'25

  7. Measurement events relative to temporal quantum reference frames
    Ladina Hausmann, Alexander Schmidhuber, Esteban Castro-Ruiz
    Quantum 9, 1616 (2025)

  8. Complexity-theoretic limitations on quantum algorithms for topological data analysis
    Alexander Schmidhuber, Seth Lloyd
    PRX Quantum 4, 040349 (2023)