My name is Dawei Zhong and I am currently a Physics Ph.D. candidate advised by Prof. Todd A. Brun at the University of Southern California. I am working on error correction, error mitigation and their application on early fault-tolerant quantum devices. I am also interested in solving classically hard problems with quantum algorithms.

Research interests: quantum error correction and application, quantum algorithms for classical optimization. I am on the job market this year.

Research Overview

My research explores how to make quantum computation more reliable and useful. I study methods for protecting quantum operations, combining error detection with error mitigation, and applying quantum algorithms to classically hard problems.

My research interests are organized into the following directions:

1. Quantum error correction and early fault tolerance

How can quantum codes protect the operations needed for computation? My work in this direction investigates code switching and the protection of exponential operations using stabilizer codes in the early fault-tolerance era.

Related works:

• Universal weakly fault-tolerant quantum computation via code switching in the $[[8,3,2]]$ code. S. Wu, D. Zhong, T. A. Brun, and D. A. Lidar. Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033380.
• Protection of Exponential Operation using Stabilizer Codes in the Early Fault Tolerance Era. D. Zhong and T. A. Brun. arXiv:2602.13399 (2026).

2. Error detection and mitigation for quantum simulation

How can error detection and error mitigation work together? I investigate hybrid approaches that combine these methods for near-term quantum simulation.

Related work:

• Combining Error Detection and Mitigation: A Hybrid Protocol for Near-Term Quantum Simulation. D. Zhong, W. Munizzi, H. Chen, W. A. de Jong. arXiv:2510.01181 (2025).

3. Quantum algorithms for optimization

I am also interested in solving classically hard problems with quantum algorithms. My work on the MaxCut problem explores classical optimization using imaginary-time block encoding on quantum computers.

Related work:

• Classical optimization with imaginary time block encoding on quantum computers: The MaxCut problem. D. Zhong, Akhil Francis, and Ermal Rrapaj. Phys. Rev. A 112, 042420 (2025)

Useful Resources

Here you can find some useful information created by me about quantum computing:

Solution and extended material of Nielsen and Chuang textbook