Sponsor

Each year National Quantum Information Centre sponsors KCIK Awards for the best BSc, MSc and PhD theses in the field of quantum information published in Poland. We also run an international competition where you can be awarded a Golden KCIK Award for solving selected problem in quantum information.

Junior KCIK Award – for best BSc thesis.

List of laureates

Bronze Award – for best MSc thesis in Quantum Information published in Poland (3000 PLN). To participate, an author should send an application before January 31 2024 to the email address: kcikaward@ug.edu.pl.

List of laureates

Silver Award – for best PhD thesis in Quantum Information published in Poland (5000 PLN). To participate, an author should send an application before January 31, 2024 to the email address: kcikaward@ug.edu.pl.

List of laureates

Golden Award (international) – for solving selected problems in quantum information and related fields (approx. 2023 EUR for each of the problems). See below for the detailed description.

List of laureates

Golden Award

Any scientist worldwide is eligible to participate. The Golden KCIK Award will be conferred for solving one of five KCIK problems on quantum information listed below. To participate, an author should send before January 31, 2024, to the email address: kcikaward@ug.edu.pl

a) a single page summarizing the solution (in pdf format),
b) a link to an arXiv preprint posted in 2023, in which a solution of the problem is provided.

In 2024 the Golden KCIK Award conferred for the year 2023 is 2023 EUR. Each year up to two prizes can be awarded. Each recipient of the KCIK Award will be invited to present his/her work during the KCIK Symposium on Quantum Information in Gdańsk. The local costs will be covered by KCIK. The Golden Award can be conferred to a group of authors who will share the prize. In such a case the awarded group selects a single representative to present the work during the Symposium.

If a given problem will not be solved during the year XXXX, the competition will be reopened for the Next Year XXXX + 1 with the same rules. The KCIK Award will be linearly upgraded to XXXX + 1 EUR and the invitation to Gdańsk for the KCIK Symposium on Quantum Information will be valid for the year XXXX +2. The Competition will be closed if all five problems are solved. Then, as always happens, new problems will come into play.

List of problems for the Golden Award:

  1. Give an infinite series of dimensions: d1, d2, d3,… for which explicit constructions of Symmetric Informationally Complete generalized quantum measurements are found or show that the list of dimensions for which solutions exist is finite
  2. Find four Mutually Unbiased Bases in dimension d=6 or prove that there are no 7 MUBs in this dimension.
  3. Find solution of the problem of 36 entangled officers of Euler, or show the solution does not exist.
  4. Establish whether there exist bound entangled states with negative partial transpose.
  5. Show that the symmetric 2-ququart Werner state with its partial transpose proportional to a unitary operator is 2-copy non-distillable.
List of problems (PDF)
How to participate (PDF)

Results of KCIK Awards 2023

Bronze Award – not awarded

Silver Award – for the best PhD Thesis on quantum information defended in Poland in 2023 (5000 PLN):

1st Place: Wojciech Górecki (University of Warsaw, Poland; National Institute for Nuclear Physics, Italy)

honorable mention: Paulina Lewandowska (Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland, Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic)

The winners are invited to give a talk on XIV KCIK- ICTQT Symposium on Quantum Information, Sopot, May 16-18 2024.

Results of Junior KCIK Award 2023

Junior KCIK Award 2023 was awarded ex aequo to

Mr. Mansur Muzafarov (UW) for the thesis “The time operator in quantum mechanics. A geometric approach to the problem of quantization”

and

Mr. Ignacy Stachura (UW) for the thesis “Genuine Bell nonlocality in many-body quantum systems“

Results of KCIK Awards 2022

Bronze Award – for the best Master Thesis on quantum information defended in Poland in 2022 (3000 PLN):

Karol Łukanowski, University of Warsaw

Silver Award – for the best PhD Thesis on quantum information defended in Poland in 2022 (5000 PLN):

dr Grzegorz Rajchel-Mieldzioć, CFT PAN, Centre of Theoretical Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences

The winners are invited to give a talk on XIV KCIK- ICTQT Symposium on Quantum Information, Sopot, May 18-20 2023.

Results of KCIK Awards 2021

  1. Golden Award – 2021 EUR for solving problem 3 [Find solution of the problem of 36 entangled officers of Euler, or show the solution does not exist] awarded to:
    • Suhail Ahmad Rather (Indian Institute of Technology Madras)
    • Adam Burchardt (QuSoft, University of Amsterdam)
    • Wojciech Bruzda (Jagiellonian University)
    • Grzegorz Rajchel-Mieldzioć (Center for Theoretical Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences)

Results of Junior KCIK Award 2021

Junior KCIK Award 2021 was awarded to Mr. Piotr Dulian (UW) for the thesis entitled Efficiency of random sets of gates

Two more theses received distinction (honorable mention)

  • Compilation of qubit quantum gates in the presence of noise by Jakub Korsak (University of Warsaw), and
  • Bell inequalities for quantum states of local dimension higher than two by Błażej Kuzak (University of Warsaw)

Results of KCIK Awards 2020

  1. Golden Award – not awarded, competition remains open!
  2. Silver Award for the best PhD thesis on quantum information defended in Poland in 2020 awarded to dr. Anna Szczepanek (Jagiellonian University) for the thesis: Quantum Dynamical Entropy of Unitary Operators in Finite-dimensional State Spaces.
  3. Bronze Award for the best MSc thesis on quantum information defended in Poland in 2020 awarded to Michał Lipka (University of Warsaw), for the thesis: Generation of polarization entanglement in wavevector-multiplexed atomic quantum memory.
  4. Special distinction went to Jakub Czartowski (Jagiellonian University) for the verification of the obtained solution on a quantum computer, title of the distinguished MSc thesis: Global quantum measurements with optimal single-sided distinguishability.
  5. Junior KCIK Award 2020 for the best BSc thesis published in Poland in 2020:
    • 1st Place: Karol Łukanowski (University of Warsaw), thesis title: Optimal light state assemblies in quantum communication in the presence of losses.
    • 2nd Place: Marcin Rudziński (Jagiellonian University, Cracow), thesis title: Generalized quantum measurements in the stellar representation.

Results of KCIK Awards 2019

  1. Golden Award – not awarded, competition remains open!
  2. Silver Award for the best PhD thesis on quantum information defended in Poland in 2019 awarded to dr, Michał Parniak (University of Warsaw) for the thesis: Multimode Quantum Optics with Spin Waves and Photons.
  3. Bronze Award for the best MSc thesis on quantum information defended in Poland in 2019 awarded to Filip Maciejewski (University of Warsaw), for the thesis: POVMs on quantum devices.
  4. Distinction for the clarity and high technical complexity of the work to Katarzyna Siudzińska (UMK Toruń). Title of the PhD thesis: Evolution of open quantum systems governed by unitarily covariant quantum channels.