ABOUT
I am a PhD student at the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT co-supervised by Isaac Chuang and Aram Harrow, and supported by the Hertz Fellowship and NDSEG Fellowship. Previously, I was an undergraduate at Caltech. I'm currently interested in quantum algorithms, spin glasses, theory of deep learning, and all that.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
See my CV for a full list of publications. (* indicates alphabetical ordering / equal contribution)
- Quantum thermal states / spin glasses
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When quantum thermal states look classical.
H. Putterman*, A. Zlokapa*, Jordan Cotler, arXiv:2607.28536 [quant-ph], 2026.
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The free energy limit of the SYK model at high temperature.
D. Gamarnik*, F. Pernice*, A. Schmidhuber*, A. Zlokapa*, arXiv:2605.02768 [cond-mat], 2026.
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A rigorous quasipolynomial-time classical algorithm for SYK thermal expectations.
A. Zlokapa, arXiv:2604.21089 [quant-ph], 2026.
[FOCS '26. Recorded talk at Simons Institute (Berkeley).] -
SYK thermal expectations are classically easy at any temperature.
A. Zlokapa and B. Kiani, arXiv:2602.22619 [quant-ph], 2026.
[Slides from talk at Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems.] -
Average-case quantum complexity from glassiness.
A. Zlokapa, B. T. Kiani, E. R. Anschuetz. arXiv:2510.08497 [quant-ph], 2025.
[QIP '26. Recorded talk at IPAM (UCLA).] - Quantum algorithms
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Optimal lower bounds for Hamiltonian simulation.
A. Zlokapa*, Richard R. Allen*, Aram W. Harrow, arXiv:2607.19852 [quant-ph], 2026.
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Exponential quantum advantage in processing massive classical data.
H. Zhao, A. Zlokapa, H. Neven, R. Babbush, J. Preskill, J. R. McClean, H.-Y. Huang, arXiv:2604.07639 [quant-ph], 2026.
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Quartic quantum speedups for community detection.
A. Schmidhuber* and A. Zlokapa*, arXiv:2510.08494 [quant-ph], 2025.
[QIP '26. XPRIZE Quantum Applications finalist.] -
Slow mixing of quantum Gibbs samplers.
D. Gamarnik*, B. T. Kiani*, A. Zlokapa*, arXiv:2411.04300 [quant-ph], 2024.
[QIP '25. Recorded talks at QuSoft/CWI (Amsterdam) and Simons Institute (Berkeley).] -
Hamiltonian simulation for low-energy states with optimal time dependence.
A. Zlokapa and R. Somma, Quantum, 2024, 2521-327X (8), 1449. (arXiv:2404.03644 [quant-ph])
[TQC '25 (Rolando's talk) and QSim '24 (my talk).] -
Traversable wormhole dynamics on a quantum processor.
D. Jafferis*, A. Zlokapa*, J. Lykken, D. Kolchmeyer, S. Davis, N. Lauk, H. Neven, and M. Spiropulu, Nature, 2022, 612 51.
[Journal cover. Quanta Magazine. Nature Views.] - Neural networks
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Gibbs measures from deep shaped multilayer perceptrons.
B. Hanin* and A. Zlokapa*, Physical Review Letters, 2026, 136 (6) 067301. (arXiv:2405.16630 [stat])
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Bayesian interpolation with deep linear networks.
B. Hanin* and A. Zlokapa*, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023, 120 (23) e2301345120. (arXiv:2212.14457 [stat])
[Recorded talk by Boris at IAFI (MIT).] -
Fault-tolerant neural networks from biological error correction codes.
A. Zlokapa, A. K. Tan, J. M. Martyn, M. Tegmark, I. L. Chuang, Physical Review E, 2024, 110 (5) 054303. (arXiv:2202.12887 [cs])
[Editors' suggestion.]
INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Not to be confused with Kartik Chandra's superior compilation of frequently asked questions. Credit goes to Sterl Phinney and Rob Phillips for teaching me to believe in spherical cows.
How crookedly does paper tear? How tall is the flame of a candle? What is the pitch of squeaking chalk? How old is the solar system, according to a boiled potato? How far can you shout upwind? From how high do you have to drop a deck of cards to shuffle it? How much darker is the edge of a coffee stain than its center? How tall is the tallest possible mountain, according to the Bohr model? How many frogs surfed down the Congo River and inhabited distant islands?