About

I am a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of quantum information science and many-body physics.

I am currently a Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholar at the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech. I am also a Visiting Researcher at Google Quantum AI.

I received my Ph.D. in Physics from UC Berkeley in December 2022, working with Professor Norman Y. Yao. Prior, I spent a year as a Visiting Researcher at Boston University from 2015-2016, and received my undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley in 2015.

Here is my CV (updated November 2024) and a link to my Google Scholar profile.

Contact

Email: schuster@caltech.edu
Office: 101 Annenberg, Caltech

Publications & Preprints

*: Co-first authors.

  1. A universal protocol for quantum-enhanced sensing via information scrambling,
    Bryce Kobrin*, Thomas Schuster*, Maxwell Block, Weijie Wu, Bradley Mitchell, Emily Davis, Norman Y. Yao,
    arXiv:2411.12794 (2024).

  2. A polynomial-time classical algorithm for noisy quantum circuits,
    Thomas Schuster*, Chao Yin*, Xun Gao, Norman Y. Yao,
    arXiv:2407.12768 (2024). (QIP 2025)

  3. Random unitaries in extremely low depth,
    Thomas Schuster, Jonas Haferkamp, Hsin-Yuan Huang,
    arXiv:2407.07754 (2024). (Long Plenary talk, QIP 2025)

  4. A holographic view of topological stabilizer codes,
    Thomas Schuster, Nathanan Tantivasadakarn, Ashvin Vishwanath, Norman Y. Yao,
    arXiv:2312.04617 (2023).

  5. The advantage of quantum control in many-body Hamiltonian learning,
    Alicjia Dutkiewicz, Thomas O'Brien, Thomas Schuster,
    arxiv:2304.07172 (2023). (QIP 2024)

  6. Comment on "Traversable wormhole dynamics on a quantum processor",
    Bryce Kobrin, Thomas Schuster, Norman Y. Yao,
    arxiv:2302.07897 (2023).
    —See also the Quanta article by Charlie Wood, Wormhole Experiment Called Into Question.

  7. Operator growth in open quantum systems,
    Thomas Schuster, Norman Y. Yao,
    Physical Review Letters (2023).
    —See also the Phys.org Feature by Ingrid Fadelli, A universal framework describing the scrambling of quantum information in open systems.

  8. Learning quantum systems via out-of-time-order correlators,
    Thomas Schuster, Murphy Niu, Jordan Cotler, Thomas O'Brien, Jarrod R. McClean, Masoud Mohseni,
    Physical Review Research (2023).

  9. Information-theoretic hardness of out-of-time-order correlators,
    Jordan Cotler, Thomas Schuster, Masoud Mohseni,
    Physical Review A (2023).

  10. Many-body quantum teleportation via operator spreading in the traversable wormhole protocol,
    Thomas Schuster*, Bryce Kobrin*, Ping Gao, Iris Cong, Emil Khabiboulline, Norbert Linke, Chris Monroe, Mikhail D. Lukin, Beni Yoshida, Norman Y. Yao,
    Physical Review X (2022).

  11. Quantum information scrambling in a superconducting qutrit processor,
    Machiel S. Blok*, Vinay V. Ramasesh*, Thomas Schuster, Kevin O'Brien, John M. Kreikebaum, Dar Dahlen, Alexis Morvan, Beni Yoshida, Norman Y. Yao, Irfan Siddiqi,
    Physical Review X (2021).

  12. Realizing Hopf insulators in dipolar spin systems,
    Thomas Schuster, Felix Flicker, Ming Li, Svetlana Kotochigova, Joel E. Moore, Jun Ye, Norman Y. Yao,
    Physical Review Letters (2021).

  13. Floquet engineering ultracold polar molecules to simulate topological insulators,
    Thomas Schuster, Felix Flicker, Ming Li, Svetlana Kotochigova, Joel E. Moore, Jun Ye, Norman Y. Yao,
    Physical Review A (2021).

  14. Braiding photonic topological zero modes,
    Jiho Noh*, Thomas Schuster*, Thomas Iadecola, Sheng Huang, Mohan Wang, Kevin P. Chen, Claudio Chamon, Mikael C. Rechstman,
    Nature Physics (2020).
    —See also the Phys.org Feature by Ingrid Fadelli, The first demonstration of braiding in photonic topological zero modes.

  15. Floquet Hopf insulators,
    Thomas Schuster, Snir Gazit, Joel E. Moore, Norman Y. Yao,
    Physical Review Letters (2019).

  16. Verified quantum information scrambling,
    Kevin Landsman, Caroline Figgatt, Thomas Schuster, Norbert M. Linke, Beni Yoshida, Norman Y. Yao, Chris Monroe,
    Nature (2019).
    —See also the Nature News and Views by Jonathan Home, Scrambling of quantum information validated by quantum teleportation.

  17. Scrambling and complexity in phase space,
    Quntao Zhuang, Thomas Schuster, Beni Yoshida, Norman Y. Yao,
    Physical Review A (2019).

  18. Prediction of galaxy ellipticities and reduction of shape noise in cosmic shear measurements,
    Rupert A. Croft, Peter E. Freeman, Thomas S. Schuster, Chad M. Schafer,
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2017)

  19. Non-abelian braiding of light,
    Thomas Iadecola, Thomas Schuster, Claudio Chamon,
    Physical Review Letters (2016).
    —See also the Phys.org Feature by Lisa Zyga, Physicists propose method for braiding light.

  20. Dissipationless conductance in a topological coaxial cable,
    Thomas Schuster, Thomas Iadecola, Claudio Chamon, Roman Jackiw, So-Young Pi,
    Physical Review B (2016).