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Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science

On one-dimensional quantum cellular automata

John Watrous

Published Nov 19, 2002• 156 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Since Richard Feynman introduced the notion of quantum computation in 1982, various models of "quantum computers" have been proposed (R. Feynman, 1992). These models include quantum Turing machines and quantum circuits. We define another quantum computational model, one dimensional quantum cellular automata, and demonstrate that any quantum Turing machine can be efficiently simulated by a one dimensional quantum cellular automaton with constant slowdown. This can be accomplished by consideration of a restricted class of one dimensional quantum cellular automata called one dimensional partitioned quantum cellular automata. We also show that any one dimensional partitioned quantum cellular automaton can be simulated by a quantum Turing machine with linear slowdown, but the problem of efficiently simulating an arbitrary one dimensional quantum cellular automaton with a quantum Turing machine is left open. From this discussion, some interesting facts concerning these models are easily deduced.

DOI
10.1109/sfcs.1995.492583

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Since Richard Feynman introduced the notion of quantum computation in 1982, various models of "quantum computers" have been proposed (R. Feynman, 1992). These models include quantum Turing machines and quantum circuits. We define another quantum computational model, one dimensional quantum cellular automata, and demonstrate that any quantum Turing machine can be efficiently simulated by a one dimensional quantum cellular automaton with constant slowdown. This can be accomplished by consideration of a restricted class of one dimensional quantum cellular automata called one dimensional partitioned quantum cellular automata. We also show that any one dimensional partitioned quantum cellular automaton can be simulated by a quantum Turing machine with linear slowdown, but the problem of efficiently simulating an arbitrary one dimensional quantum cellular automaton with a quantum Turing machine is left open. From this discussion, some interesting facts concerning these models are easily deduced.
A natural architecture for nanoscale quantum computation is that of a quantum cellular automaton. Motivated by this observation, in this paper we begin an investigation of exactly unitary cellular automata. After proving that there can be no nontrivial, homogeneous, local, unitary, scalar cellular automaton in one dimension, we weaken the homogeneity condition and show that there are nontrivial, exactly unitary, partitioning cellular automata. We find a one parameter family of evolution rules which are best interpreted as those for a one particle quantum automaton. This model is naturally reformulated as a two component cellular automaton which we demonstrate to limit to the Dirac equation. We describe two generalizations of this automaton, the second of which, to multiple interacting particles, is the correct definition of a quantum lattice gas. KEY WORDS: quantum cellular automaton; quantum lattice gas; quantum computation. to appear in J. Stat. Phys.
We define quantum cellular automata as infinite quantum lattice systems with discrete time dynamics, such that the time step commutes with lattice translations and has strictly finite propagation speed. In contrast to earlier definitions this allows us to give an explicit characterization of all local rules generating such automata. The same local rules also generate the global time step for automata with periodic boundary conditions. Our main structure theorem asserts that any quantum cellular automaton is structurally reversible, i.e., that it can be obtained by applying two blockwise unitary operations in a generalized Margolus partitioning scheme. This implies that, in contrast to the classical case, the inverse of a nearest neighbor quantum cellular automaton is again a nearest neighbor automaton. We present several construction methods for quantum cellular automata, based on unitaries commuting with their translates, on the quantization of (arbitrary) reversible classical cellular automata, on quantum circuits, and on Clifford transformations with respect to a description of the single cells by finite Weyl systems. Moreover, we indicate how quantum random walks can be considered as special cases of cellular automata, namely by restricting a quantum lattice gas automaton with local particle number conservation to the single particle sector.
We give a one-dimensional quantum cellular automaton (QCA) capable of simulating all others. By this we mean that the initial configuration and the local transition rule of any one-dimensional QCA can be encoded within the initial configuration of the universal QCA. Several steps of the universal QCA will then correspond to one step of the simulated QCA. The simulation preserves the topology in the sense that each cell of the simulated QCA is encoded as a group of adjacent cells in the universal QCA. The encoding is linear and hence does not carry any of the cost of the computation. We do this in two flavours: a weak one which requires an infinite but periodic initial configuration and a strong one which needs only a finite initial configuration. KEYWORDS: Quantum cellular automata, Intrinsic universality, Quantum computation.
The quantum walk is a subset of classical random walks.Considerable research has lately been conducted on quantum walks in relation to quantum computing.The walk may be thought of as a type of quantum cellular automata.In a broader sense, there is a one-to-one link between them.Furthermore, we look at another type of quantum cellular automata that may be thought of as a quantum version of stochastic cellular automata.The quantum walk formalism is a widely used and quite practical paradigm for modelling quantum systems such as Dirac equation simulations, discrete dynamics in both the low and high energy regimes, and the development of a multitude of quantum algorithms.The walker in a QW moves in a quantum superposition of pathways, and the ensuing interference serves as the foundation for a broad range of quantum algorithms, including quantum search, graph isomorphism issues, and rating nodes in a network.To generate a block representation of n-dimensional quantum cellular automata, we apply the following general result to them.As a result, we have demonstrated that their generic, axiomatic formulation nevertheless produces a unifying, operational representation of them.Some non-trivial ramifications are investigated, such as the fact that bijective non-reversible CA are not physical as closed systems, or that quantum information can move faster than classical informationwithin some specified dynamics.Finally, we present n-dimensional quantum cellular automata that can simulate anything else.This means that the initial configuration and local transition rule of any one-dimensional QCA may be stored within the universal QCA's initial configuration.The simulated QCA will then correspond to many phases of the universal QCA.In the sense that each cell in the simulated QCA is represented as a group of nearby cells in the universal QCA, the simulation preserves the topology.Because the encoding is linear, it bears no cost of the calculation.
This thesis presents a model of Quantum Cellular Automata (QCA). The presented formalism is a natural quantization of the classical Cellular Automata (CA). It is based on a lattice of qudits, and an update rule consisting of local unitary operators that commute with their own lattice translations. One purpose of this model is to act as a theoretical model of quantum computation, similar to the quantum circuit model. The main advantage that QCA have over quantum circuits is that QCA make considerably fewer demands on the underlying hardware. In particular, as opposed to direct implementations of quantum circuits, the global evolution of the lattice in the QCA model does not assume independent control over individual \emph{qudits}. Rather, all qudits are to be addressed collectively in parallel. The QCA model is also shown to be an appropriate abstraction for space-homogeneous quantum phenomena, such as quantum lattice gases, spin chains and others. Some results that show the benefits of basing the model on local unitary operators are shown: computational universality, strong connections to the circuit model, simple implementation on quantum hardware, and a series of applications. A detailed discussion will be given on one particular application of QCA that lies outside either computation or simulation: single-spin measurement. This algorithm uses the techniques developed in this thesis to achieve a result normally considered hard in physics. It serves well as an example of why QCA are interesting in their own right.
We discuss the role of classical control in the context of reversible quantum cellular automata. Employing the structure theorem for quantum cellular automata, we give a general construction scheme to turn an arbitrary cellular automaton with external classical control into an autonomous one, thereby proving the computational equivalence of these two models. We use this technique to construct a universally programmable cellular automaton on a one-dimensional lattice with single cell dimension 12.