Konrad Szymański – Curriculum Vitae

(Google Scholar, github)

Research topics

Noisy graph states: Preparation of cluster (and graph) states is always a noisy procedure, which leads to mixed states with imperfect entanglement properties. In certain situations, selecting an appropriate measurement basis can reduce the impact on the final objective (this work).

Expressive power of quantum autonomous dynamics: Which states are achievable using a physical (two- or three-body) Hamiltonian from an initial product state of choice? A mathematical framework to address this question has been established. Several papers are in preparation, and I recently organized a workshop focused on this subject.

Reference-independent transformations: If a spin state is initialized relative to an unknown directional reference frame, it effectively undergoes an unknown rotational unitary transformation. Still, additional transformations can occur (occasionally in a probabilistic manner) without the need for the absent reference, as studied here in collaboration with my MSc student Fynn Otto. Analogous scenarios involving harmonic evolution were examined in my thesis.

Geometry in quantum information: The set of density operators is characterized by semidefinite constraints, which become increasingly complex to analyze as the dimension increases. The characterization of the set was examined from multiple angles: starting with the mathematical classification of its projections to physics-based applications such as demonstrating the presence of a vanishing energy gap, exploring the properties of spin squeezed states, identifying entanglement witnesses, and creating algorithms for sampling from affine subsets of the set of states.

Spin dynamics: Spin systems are ubiquitous in quantum mechanics, and despite their utility, manipulating them poses significant challenges. In a number of my works, I investigated such scenarios: I found possible ways of efficient preparation of highly polarized spin states under realistic conditions, and analyzed noise susceptibility of systems of indistinguishable particles (here and here). This topic is also relevant to this work, which examined the theoretical properties of quantum operations commuting with spin rotations.

Nuclear science: A simulation modeling the scattering of gamma photons within an organic scintillator has been developed. These findings were utilized to establish theoretical constraints on the resolution of a prototype positron emission tomography device.

Employment and education

Postdoc at Research Center for Quantum Information (Bratislava)

Visiting scientist at Atominstitut (Vienna)

Postdoc at Universität Siegen (Siegen, 2022–2025)

PhD in physics (2017–2022) in the group of Prof. Karol Życzkowski (Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Kraków). Defense date: 23 September 2022. The thesis (Numerical ranges and geometry in quantum information) is available here.

Introductory courses: theoretical computer science (2017, 2018) and chemistry (2019).

Received grants

Slovak Academy of Sciences grants: Stefan Schwarz programme, fellow of Institute of Physics, Postdokgrant.

STAR (Horizon Europe: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), postdoc grant allowing for independent research plan (Robustness and limits of quantum state preparation, Universität Siegen, 2022–2024).

Diamond grant awarded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to promising masters students to continue their research into PhD (Coherence protection in the system of indistinguishable particles, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 2016–2019).

Other

Main organizer of the workshop Geometry of Quantum Dynamics (Siegen, 2024).

Judge at International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2023.

Referee for STOC conference (2025), New Journal of Physics (2024), PRX Quantum (2024), Physical Review A (2022 ×2, 2023 ×2, 2025 ×2), Annalen der Physik (2022), and Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical (2019, 2022, 2025).

Supervision of a MSc student, Fynn Otto, resulting in this publication.

Education experience: taught classes in introductory quantum mechanics (Kraków), Python (Kraków), quantum optics (Siegen), and applications of geometry in quantum mechanics (Siegen).

Wolfram Staff Picks award.

Radio operator, callsign SQ9GMD.

Presentations

Postdoc years

  • Noc Vedy (Bratislava, 2025) — Popular science presentation at Night of Researchers event
  • Quantum25 conference (Göttingen, Sep 2025) — Geometry of quantum correlations
  • QUTE2025 summer school (Vienna, 2025) — Quantum information geometry
  • International Workshop on Operator Theory and its Applications (Enschede, 2025) — Parameterization of numerical ranges
  • Bonn (Mar 2025) — Information processing without directional reference
  • Geometry of Quantum Dynamics (Siegen, 2024) — State reachability in isolated systems with 2-body Hamiltonians + main organizer
  • Atominstitut QuIT group seminar (Wien, 2024) — (Un)reachability of states with 2-body dynamics
  • DPG Spring Meeting of the Atomic, Molecular, Quantum Optics and Photonics Section (Berlin, 2024) — State reachability in isolated systems with 2-body Hamiltonians
  • Joint experimental and theoretical quantum optics seminar (Siegen, 2024) — State reachability in isolated systems with 2-body Hamiltonians
  • Quantum Error Correction seminar at Budapesti Műszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem (Budapest, 2024) — Reduction of noise effects in imperfect graph states
  • Chaos and Quantum Information seminar (Kraków, 2024) — Rotational covariance restricts available quantum states
  • Quantum Information and Quantum Computing Working Group seminar (Warsaw, 2024) — Reduction of noise effects in imperfect graph states
  • Wolfram Guest Speaker Series (2022) — Numerical Ranges and Geometry in Quantum Information
  • DPG Spring Meeting of the Atomic, Molecular, Quantum Optics and Photonics Section (Hannover, 2023) — Graph state preparation with noisy interactions
  • Joint experimental and theoretical quantum optics seminar (Siegen, 2023) — Graph states: quantum computing's promising future
  • Ad hoc seminar at Universität Wien, Philip Walther group (Wien, 2023) — Graph state preparation with noisy interactions
  • Quantum Corona (Siegen, 2023) — Improving localizable entanglement in graph states through error-detecting measurements
  • The 16th Workshop on Numerical Ranges and Numerical Radii (invited talk, Coimbra, 2023) — Numerical ranges in quantum information: entanglement and uncertainty relations
  • Universität Siegen physics department ad hoc seminar (Siegen, 2023) — Chat de Schrödinger: Both Adept and Naïve
  • DPG Meeting of the Condensed Matter Section (Regensburg, 2022) — Geometry of expectation values of non-commuting observables

PhD years

  • IITiS seminar (Gliwice, 2022) — Group-covariant state interconversion
  • University of Southern California, Daniel Lidar group seminar (2021) — Witnessing the value of energy gap with numerical ranges
  • Academia Electronica, popular science seminar in Second Life (2021) — Chaos and determinism in the physical world
  • Chaos and Quantum Information seminar (Kraków, 2020) — Universal witnesses of vanishing energy gap
  • International Conference on Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (invited talk, Minsk, 2019) — Tight Uncertainty Relations for Angular Momentum Operators
  • Akademie Krakau International (Kraków, 2019) — Uncertainty relations
  • Chaos and Quantum Information seminar (Kraków, 2019) — Tight Uncertainty Relations for Angular Momentum Operators
  • KCIK Symposium (Sopot, 2018) — Joint expectation values, uncertainty relations and phase transitions
  • Quantum Technologies Conference IX (Jastarnia, 2018) — Coherence protection through spin self-rephasing
  • Academia Electronica, popular science seminar in Second Life (2018) — Quantum Mechanics
  • Università di Pavia, Lorenzo Maccone group seminar (Pavia, 2018)
  • Stockholms Universitet, Ingemar Bengtsson group seminar (Stockholm, 2018) — Geometric and Algebraic Origin of Additive Uncertainty Relations
  • Templeton Symposium: Quantum Foundations and Beyond (invited talk, Sopot, 2017) — Uncertainty relations from numerical range

Student years

  • 57th School of Theoretical Physics (Zakopane, 2017) — Joint values of non-commuting quantum observables
  • Chaos and Quantum Information seminar (Kraków, 2017) — Uncertainty relations from numerical range
  • Chaos and Quantum Information seminar (Kraków, 2017) — Joint measurement of multiple observables
  • Imperial College London, David Jennings group seminar (London, 2017) — Joint values of non-commuting quantum observables
  • Quantum Technologies Conference VII (Warsaw, 2016) — Evolution of entanglement in the presence of losses
  • Winter Kindergarten of Theoretical Physics (Karpacz, 2014 and 2015)
  • Chaos and Quantum Information seminar (Kraków, 2014) — Singularities of the set of density matrices: three-dimensional projections
  • Symposium on Positron Emission Tomography (Kraków, 2013) — Simulation of multiple scattering of annihilation quanta in a strip of organic scintillator

Publication list

Graph states

  • K.S., Lina Vandré, and Otfried Gühne. "Useful entanglement can be extracted from noisy graph states". Quantum 10 (Jan. 2026), p. 1977. DOI: 10.22331/q-2026-01-21-1977

Geometric methods in QI

  • K.S., Stephan Weis, and Karol Życzkowski. "Classification of joint numerical ranges of three hermitian matrices of size three". Linear Algebra and its Applications 545 (2018), pp. 148–173. DOI: 10.1016/j.laa.2017.11.017
  • K.S., Benoit Collins, Tomasz Szarek, and Karol Życzkowski. "Convex set of quantum states with positive partial transpose analysed by hit and run algorithm". Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 50.25 (2017), p. 255206. DOI: 10.1088/1751-8121/aa70f5
  • K.S. and Karol Życzkowski. "Geometric and algebraic origins of additive uncertainty relations". Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 53.1 (2019), p. 015302. DOI: 10.1088/1751-8121/ab4543
  • Jakub Czartowski, K.S., Bartłomiej Gardas, Yan V Fyodorov, and Karol Życzkowski. "Separability gap and large-deviation entanglement criterion". Physical Review A 100.4 (2019), p. 042326. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.100.042326
  • K.S. and Karol Życzkowski. "Universal witnesses of vanishing energy gap". Europhysics Letters 136.3 (2022), p. 30003. DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/ac35f4
  • Timo Simnacher, Jakub Czartowski, K.S., and Karol Życzkowski. "Confident entanglement detection via the separable numerical range". Physical Review A 104.4 (2021), p. 042420. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.104.042420
  • K.S. "Numerical ranges and geometry in quantum information: Entanglement, uncertainty relations, phase transitions, and state interconversion". PhD thesis. 2022. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2303.07390
  • Piotr Pikul, Ilya Spitkovsky, K.S., Stephan Weis, and Karol Życzkowski. "The joint numerical range of three 4×4 matrices". Oct. 31, 2025. DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2510.27670. arXiv: 2510.2767

Algebraic methods

Spin dynamics

  • K.S. and Krzysztof Pawłowski. "Evolution of entanglement under an Ising-like Hamiltonian with particle losses". Physical Review A 96.6 (2017), p. 062312. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.96.062312
  • K.S. and Krzysztof Pawłowski. "Quantum correlation protection through spin self-rephasing in a one-dimensional Bose gas". Physical Review A 101.1 (2020), p. 013432. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.101.013432
  • Simon M Rochester, K.S., Mark Raizen, Szymon Pustelny, Marcis Auzinsh, and Dmitry Budker. "Efficient polarization of high-angular-momentum systems". Physical Review A 94.4 (2016), p. 043416. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.94.043416

Other

  • K.S., Paweł Moskal, Tomasz Bednarski, Piotr Białas, Eryk Czerwiński, Krzysztof Giergiel, Łukasz Kapłon, Andrzej Kochanowski, Grzegorz Korcyl, Jakub Kowal, et al. "Simulations of γ quanta scattering in a single module of the J-PET detector". Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems 10.2 (2014), pp. 71–77. DOI: 10.1515/bams-2013-0107
  • Paweł Kowalski et al. "Determination of the map of efficiency of the Jagiellonian Positron Emission Tomograph (J-PET) detector with the GATE package". Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems 10.2 (2014), pp. 85–90. DOI: 10.1515/bams-2014-0002
  • Tomasz Bednarski et al. "Calibration of photomultipliers gain used in the J-PET detector". Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems 10.1 (2014), pp. 13–17. DOI: 10.1515/bams-2013-0110
  • Piotr Białas et al. "List-mode reconstruction in 2D strip PET". Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems 10.1 (2014), pp. 9–12. DOI: 10.1515/bams-2013-0111