Jeongrak Son
(손정락) [He/Him]
PhD Student / Project Officer
Hi! I am a PhD student / project officer working on quantum information and quantum thermodynamics. Currently, I am based at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore as a part of In.Q group led by Nelly Ng.
My main research focus is the concept of 'catalysis' in quantum processes, which is analogous but not identical to its more famous relative, chemical catalysis. In essence, catalysis is a process where an additional system called catalyst can be used, with the constraint that it must recover its original state. Because of this recovery, the same catalyst can be reused for an indefinite number of times.
I am starting to broaden my research interests. I have been working on devising a dynamic programming approach of solving quantum recursions using circuits instructed by quantum states and exploring the interplay of multiple resources. Check out my full list of publications in the Publications tab.
Besides physics, I am very passionate about films. To see my four favourites, check out my Letterboxd profile. To read my film reviews (published and unpublished) check out the Film Reviews tab.
News
- 04/08/2025-08/08/2025 Seok Hyung Lie will give a talk at the Asian Quantum Information Science Conference (AQIS) 2025 on our work "Robust Catalysis and Resource Broadcasting: The Possible and the Impossible"
- 23/07/2025 My preprint "Thermal operations from informational equilibrium" w/ Seok Hyung Lie, Paul Boes, Nelly H. Y. Ng, and Henrik Wilming has been uploaded to arXiv.
- 22/07/2025 My preprint "Grover's algorithm is an approximation of imaginary-time evolution" w/ Yudai Suzuki, Marek Gluza, Bi Hong Tiang, Nelly H. Y. Ng, and Zoë Holmes has been uploaded to arXiv.
- 20/07/2025 I wrote a review on two films I watched at AFA: 당신자신과 당신의 것 (Yourself and Yours, 2016) by Hong Sang Soo and Conte d'automne (Autumn Tale, 1998) by Éric Rohmer.
- 07/07/2025-11/07/2025 I attended Quantum Thermodynamics (QTD) 2025 and gave a talk "Double-bracket quantum algorithms for quantum imaginary-time evolution". My other work on Gaussian phase-covariant channels was presented by Xueyuan Hu.
- 02/07/2025 I became an IOP Trusted Reviewer!
- 02/07/2025 My film review of Happy Hour (2015) by Ryusuku Hamaguchi has finally been published in Exposure (NTU film society's in-house publication). You can also find it in the Film Reviews section of this website.
- 19/05/2025 I started my role as a project officer in in.Q group.
- 07/05/2025 My paper "Quantum Dynamic Programming" w/ Marek Gluza, Ryuji Takagi, and Nelly H. Y. Ng has been published in Physical Review Letters. See CQT highlight article for a popular summary.
- 03/04/2025 My preprint "Double-bracket algorithm for quantum signal processing without post-selection" w/ Yudai Suzuki, Bi Hong Tiang, Nelly H. Y. Ng, Zoë Holmes, and Marek Gluza has been uploaded to arXiv.
- 17/03/2025-21/03/2025 I attended Quantum Resources 2025 and gave a talk "Entanglement generation from athermality". My other work "Robust Catalysis and Resource Broadcasting: The Possible and the Impossible" was presented by Nelly Ng.
- 10/03/2025-14/03/2025 I visited Hyukjoon Kwon's group at KIAS.
- 23/01/2025-24/01/2025 I visited Jonatan Bohr Brask's group at DTU and gave a talk on "Robust Catalysis and Resource Broadcasting: The Possible and the Impossible".
- 20/01/2025-21/01/2025 I visited Martin Plenio's group at Ulm University and gave a talk on "Robust Catalysis and Resource Broadcasting: The Possible and the Impossible".
- 06/01/2025-17/01/2025 I visited Jens Eisert's group at FU Berlin and gave a talk on "Quantum Dynamic Programming" and "Double-bracket quantum algorithms for quantum imaginary-time evolution".
- 11/12/2024 My preprint "Robust Catalysis and Resource Broadcasting: The Possible and the Impossible" w/ Ray Ganardi, Shintaro Minagawa, Francesco Buscemi, Seok Hyung Lie, and Nelly H. Y. Ng has been uploaded to arXiv.
- 09/12/2024 My preprint "Double-bracket quantum algorithms for quantum imaginary-time evolution" w/ Marek Gluza, Bi Hong Tiang, René Zander, Raphael Seidel, Yudai Suzuki, Zoë Holmes, and Nelly H. Y. Ng has been uploaded to arXiv.
- 01/12/2024 My talk "Entanglement generation from athermality" got accepted for Quantum Resources 2025.
- 25/10/2024-31/10/2024 I visited Hyukjoon Kwon's group at KIAS and gave a seminar talk on "Quantum Dynamic Programming".
- 15/10/2024 My paper "A hierarchy of thermal processes collapses under catalysis" w/ Nelly H. Y. Ng has been published in Quantum Science and Technology.
- 02/10/2024 I gave two talks ("Entanglement generation from athermality", "Quantum dynamic programming") at the IPS Meeting 2024.
- 23/09/2024 I gave a Q.InC seminar on Quantum Dynamic Programming at A*STAR, Singapore.
- 06/09/2024 The website has been renovated!
- 03/09/2024 My paper "Entanglement Generation from Athermality" w/ A. de Oliveira Junior, Jakub Czartowski, and Nelly H. Y. Ng has been published in Physical Review Research.
Selected publications
- J. Son, M. Gluza, R. Takagi, and N. H. Y. Ng, Quantum Dynamic Programming, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 180602 (2025) [arXiv]
- J. Son and N. H. Y. Ng, A hierarchy of thermal processes collapses under catalysis, Quantum Sci. Technol. 10, 015011 (2024) [arXiv]
- J. Son, P. Talkner, and J. Thingna, Monitoring quantum Otto engines, PRX-Quantum 2, 040328 (2021)