An introduction to quantum computing and quantum error correction (with a connection to Howe duality)

Recently, Gurevitch and Howe have associated a notion of "rank" to representations of the symplectic group, and showed that "highest rank" representations satisfy a form of Howe duality over finite fields (c.f. talk on the 20th). Montealegre-Mora and me then realized that the rank-deficient reps occurring in this context can be characterized in terms of certain quantum error correcting codes. The purpose of this talk is to explain the background of this development, i.e. why physicists care about these objects in the first place. To this end, I will give a non-technical introduction to the ideas and prospects of quantum computation and quantum error correcting codes.