Soorya Rethinasamy

Physics Ph.D. at Cornell University

I design and study quantum algorithms. I am pursuing my Ph.D. from Cornell University, working with Dr. Mark M. Wilde. I have worked on several broad areas, including symmetries, distinguishability measures, variational algorithms, among others.

Education

Jan. 2020 — May 2025
Doctor of Philosophy in Applied & Engineering Physics
Cornell Univesity, Ithaca, NY
Advisor: Mark M. Wilde
Transferred from Louisiana State University in Jun. 2021. Overall GPA: 4.32/4.00
Jun. 2021 - May 2024
Master of Science in Applied and Engineering Physics
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Aug. 2015 - May 2020
Master of Science (Honors) in Physics
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Pilani, India
Overall GPA: 9.52/10.0, Best Outgoing Student in Physics Award
Aug. 2015 - May 2020
Bachelor of Engineering (Honors) in Computer Science
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Pilani, India
Overall GPA: 9.52/10.0, Best Outgoing Student Award

Industry Research Experience

Summer 2024
JPMorgan Chase, New York City, NA
Summer Associate, Global Technology Applied Research Team
Theoretical quantum algorithms research on Lie algebras and Zeno dynamics.

Academic Research Experience

Aug. 2022 — May 2025
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Graduate Research Assistant, School of Applied and Engineering Physics
Advisor: Mark M. Wilde
Member of the Wilde research group where we conduct research in multiple different domains within quantum information science and quantum computing.
May. 2021 — July 2022
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Graduate Research Assistant, School of Physics and Astronomy
Advisor: Mark M. Wilde
Member of the Wilde research group where we conduct research in multiple different domains within quantum information science and quantum computing.
Aug. 2019 — Dec. 2019
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Research Intern, School of Physics and Astronomy
Mentor: Mark M. Wilde
Worked on my Masters thesis on quantum information theory.
Aug. 2018 — Dec. 2018
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Pilani, India
Student Researcher, Physics Department
Mentor: Tapomoy Guha Sarkar
Semester long project on Early Universe Non-Linear Structure Formation
May 2018 — Jul. 2018
Harish Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, India
Summer Research Fellow, Physics Department
Mentor: Aditi Sen De
Summer research fellow as part of the SRFP Fellowship program
May 2017 — Jul. 2017
Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, India
Research Intern, Radioactivity Department
Mentor: Dr. S. Chandrasekaran
PS-1 summer project as part of the BITS Pilani degree program

Work Experience

Jun. 2020 — Nov. 2020
VMWare, Inc., Bangalore, India
Software Development Engineer
Mentor: Manoj Krishnan
Worked on integrating Kubernetes with native vSphere to deploy virtual machines and containers
May 2019 — Jul. 2019
DE Shaw, Hyderabad, India
Intern
Created an email parser using regular expressions and dependency parsing to extract relevant information from sell-side emails and programmatically connected it to financial models

Honors and Awards

2020
Prabat Award for Best Outgoing Student
Awarded by the Physics Department at BITS Pilani
2018
Summer Reasearch Fellowship Program
Awarded by the Indian Academy of Sciences

Publications

Journal

J6
Logarithmic-Depth Quantum Circuits for Hamming Weight Projections
Soorya Rethinasamy, Margarite L. LaBorde, Mark M. Wilde
Physical Review A (Phys. Rev. A). 2024.
Project PDF BibTeX DOI
J5
Quantum Computational Complexity and Symmetry
Soorya Rethinasamy, Margarite L. LaBorde, Mark M. Wilde
Canadian Journal of Physics (CJP). 2023.
Project PDF BibTeX DOI
J4
Schrödinger as a Quantum Programmer: Estimating Entanglement via Steering
Aby Philip, Soorya Rethinasamy, Vincent Russo, Mark M. Wilde
Quantum Journal. 2023.
Project PDF BibTeX DOI
J3
Estimating Distinguishability Measures on Quantum Computers
Soorya Rethinasamy, Rochisha Agarwal, Kunal Sharma, Mark M. Wilde
Physical Review A (Phys. Rev. A). 2021.
Project PDF Video Slides Poster BibTeX DOI
J2
Testing Symmetry on Quantum Computers
Margarite L. LaBorde, Soorya Rethinasamy, Mark M. Wilde
Quantum Journal. 2021.
Project PDF Video Slides BibTeX DOI
J1
Relative Entropy and Catalytic Relative Majorization
Soorya Rethinasamy, Mark M. Wilde
Physical Review Research (Phys. Rev. Research). 2019.
Project PDF Video BibTeX DOI

Conference

C1
Efficacious qubit mappings for quantum simulations of the \(^{12}C\) rotational band
Darin C. Mumma, Zhonghao Sun, Alexis Mercenne, Kristina D. Launey, Soorya Rethinasamy, James A. Sauls
2024 IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI). 2024.
Project PDF BibTeX DOI

Preprint

P4
Quantum Algorithms for Realizing Symmetric, Asymmetric, and Antisymmetric Projectors
Margarite L. LaBorde, Soorya Rethinasamy, Mark M. Wilde
arXiv. 2024.
Project PDF BibTeX DOI
P3
Neutron-nucleus dynamics simulations for quantum computers
Soorya Rethinasamy, Ethan Guo, Alexander Wei, Mark M. Wilde, Kristina D. Launey
arXiv. 2024.
Project PDF BibTeX DOI
P2
QSlack: A slack-variable approach for variational quantum semi-definite programming
Jingxuan Chen, Hanna Westerheim, Zoë Holmes, Ivy Luo, Theshani Nuradha, Dhrumil Patel, Soorya Rethinasamy, Kathie Wang, Mark M. Wilde
arXiv. 2023.
Project PDF Poster BibTeX DOI
P1
Dual-VQE: A quantum algorithm to lower bound the ground-state energy
Hanna Westerheim, Jingxuan Chen, Zoë Holmes, Ivy Luo, Theshani Nuradha, Dhrumil Patel, Soorya Rethinasamy, Kathie Wang, Mark M. Wilde
arXiv. 2023.
Project PDF Poster BibTeX DOI

Mentoring

Summer 2023 — Summer 2025
Kathie Wang
West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South
QSlack and Dual-VQE
Now: AB in Computer Science at Princeton University
Summer 2023 — Summer 2025
Ivy Luo
Baton Rouge Magnet High School Class of 2026
QSlack and Dual-VQE
AP Scholar with Distinction, National Merit Semi-Finalist
Now: High School Student at Baton Rouge Magnet High School
Summer 2021 — Summer 2022
Alexander Wei
Baton Rouge Magnet High School
Neutron-nucleus dynamics simulations for quantum computers
USAID Award, Science Fair Winner
Now: Undergraduate Student, BS in Mechanical Engineering at Yale University
Summer 2021 — Summer 2022
Ethan Guo
Baton Rouge Magnet High School
Neutron-nucleus dynamics simulations for quantum computers
USAID Award, Science Fair Winner
Now: Undergraduate Student, BS in Computer Science at University of California at San Diego