About us

The Department of Physics at King s College London is part of the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences. It provides a research environment spanning theoretical physics, quantum science, condensed matter, materials, photonics and interdisciplinary applications of physical science.

This role sits within a collaborative quantum science project at King s on quantum algorithms and numerical methods for many-body dynamics beyond the reach of standard classical simulation.

About the role

We have a high preference for a candidate who is willing to start imminently, and before mid October this year. The project intended for the post-doc is part of a collaboration within my group on the Google Willow Chip project for which we require quick delivery.

The goal of this recruitment is to appoint one postdoctoral researcher who will deliver complementary parts of a funded project on simulating highly occupied bosons coupled to qubits. Achieving this is important because many classically intractable problems in energy, materials and technology involve coupled fermionic, bosonic and qubit-like degrees of freedom, yet bosonic dynamics remain difficult to access on near-term quantum hardware. The difficulty is that the relevant Hilbert spaces grow rapidly, the dynamics are non-Gaussian and nonlinear, and the circuits must be mapped carefully to hardware topology while retaining useful observables.

The project addresses this by combining circuit co-design for Google's Willow processor, and classical benchmarking using Pauli propagation and tensor network methods. The posts will focus on classical benchmarking, including Pauli propagation, tensor networks and related numerical methods for simulating smaller systems and comparing them with quantum results.

This is a full time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an fixed term contract of 9 months. Remote working arrangements can be found.

Research staff at King s are entitled to at least 10 days per year (pro-rata) for professional development. This entitlement, from the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, applies to Postdocs, Research Assistants, Research and Technicians, Teaching Fellows and AEP equivalent up to and including grade 7. Visit the Centre for Research Staff Development for more information.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

PhD qualified in a relevant subject area, such as theoretical physics, computational physics, quantum information, quantum computing, applied mathematics, computer science or a closely related discipline. Candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award may be considered under the standard King s Grade 6 research clause.
Strong research experience in tensor networks, pauli propagation, quantum information, quantum algorithms, many-body physics, quantum simulation, computational physics or a closely related area.
Strong written and oral communication skills, including the ability to contribute to publications, reports and presentations.
Excellent programming skills in Python, Julia, C++ or a comparable scientific-computing language, with evidence of producing reliable research code.
Ability to carry out independent numerical research, validate results and communicate technical assumptions clearly.
Ability to work effectively in a collaborative research environment involving academic and external partners.
Commitment to open, reproducible and well-documented research practice, including appropriate data and software management.

Desirable criteria

Experience with tensor network algorithms, Pauli propagation, exact diagonalisation or other classical simulation methods for quantum many-body systems.
Research experience with bosonic systems, fermion-boson models, spin-boson models, neural or threshold dynamics, or analogue/digital quantum simulation.
Experience with high-performance computing, GPU acceleration, automated benchmarking or large-scale numerical workflows.
Evidence of self-motivated contributing to collaborative research outputs, open-source software, preprints, peer-reviewed publications or conference presentations.

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

Further Information

At King s, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university.

The Equality Act of 2010 protects the rights of our students and staff and provides a framework to fulfil our duties to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and in addition, to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. At times, this will include balancing rights and beliefs that can feel in tension.

We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination.

When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King s guidance.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day.

We encourage you to apply at the earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment as once we have closed a vacancy you will be unable to submit your application.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our How we Recruit pages.

Interviews are due to be held on a rolling basis.