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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Quantum fast Fourier transform and quantum computation by linear optics

Ronen Barak, Y. Ben-Aryeh

Published Jan 26, 2007• 66 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Using the quantum fast Fourier transform in linear optics the input mode annihilation operators {â0,â1,...,âs−1} are transformed into output mode annihilation operators {b̂0,b̂1,...,b̂s−1}. We show how to implement experimentally such transformations based on the Cooley-Tukey algorithm, by the use of beam splitters and phase shifters in a linear optical system. Optical systems implementing 1,2, and 3 qubits discrete Fourier transform (DFT) are described, and a general method for implementing the n-qubit DFT is analyzed. These transformations are used on various input radiation states by which phase estimation and order finding can be computed.

DOI
10.1364/josab.24.000231

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Using the quantum fast Fourier transform in linear optics the input mode annihilation operators {â0,â1,...,âs−1} are transformed into output mode annihilation operators {b̂0,b̂1,...,b̂s−1}. We show how to implement experimentally such transformations based on the Cooley-Tukey algorithm, by the use of beam splitters and phase shifters in a linear optical system. Optical systems implementing 1,2, and 3 qubits discrete Fourier transform (DFT) are described, and a general method for implementing the n-qubit DFT is analyzed. These transformations are used on various input radiation states by which phase estimation and order finding can be computed.
The quantum Fourier transform for discrete variable (dvQFT) is an efficient algorithm for several applications. It is usually considered for the processing of quantum bits (qubits) and its efficient implementation is obtained with two elementary components: the Hadamard gate and the controlled--phase gate. In this paper, the quantum Fourier transform operating with continuous variables (cvQFT) is considered. Thus, the environment becomes the Hilbert space, where the natural definition of the cvQFT will be related to rotation operators, which in the NNN--mode are completely specified by unitary matrices of order NNN. Then the cvQFT is defined as the rotation operator whose rotation matrix is given by the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix. For the implementation of rotation operators with primitive components (single--mode rotations and beam splitters), we follow the well known Murnaghan procedure, with appropriate modifications. Moreover, algorithms related to the fast Fourier transform (FFT) are applied to reduce drastically the implementation complexity. The final part is concerned with the application of the cvQFT to general Gaussian states. In particular, we show that cvQFT has the simple effect of transforming the displacement vector by a one-dimensional DFT, the squeeze matrix by a two-dimensional DFT, and the rotation matrix by a Fourier-like similarity transform.
Optical structures to implement the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms for discretely sampled data sets are considered. In particular, the decomposition of the FFT algorithm into the basic Butterfly operations is described, as this allows the algorithm to be fully implemented by the successive coherent addition and subtraction of two wavefronts (the subtraction being performed after one has been appropriately phase shifted), so facilitating a simple and robust hardware implementation based on waveguided hybrid devices as employed in coherent optical detection modules. Further, a comparison is made to the optical structures proposed for the optical implementation of the quantum Fourier transform and they are shown to be very similar.
The first section of the work investigates light modes as a means of implementing optical qubits and qudits. The modes considered are polarization mode, path mode, transverse spatial mode, frequency mode, temporal bin-mode and temporal mode. Subsequently, mathematical model of linear optical elements like beam splitters (BS) and phase shifters are deduced and their capability of representing any single qubit optical gate is exposed. Finally Knill, Laflamme and Milburn (KLM) method of using linear optical elements to promote nonlinear operations based on nonlinear (nondeterministic) sign-flip gate (NS) is explained, and designs of two qubits conditional sign flip gate (c-z1/16) and CNOT gate, both based on KLM method, are demonstrated. So, universal set of quantum gates based on linear optics is possible.
A large number of applications in classical and quantum photonics require the capability of implementing arbitrary linear unitary transformations on a set of optical modes. In a seminal work by Reck et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett.73, 58 (1994)10.1103/PhysRevLett.73.58], it was shown how to build such multiport universal interferometers with a mesh of beam splitters and phase shifters, and this design became the basis for most experimental implementations in the last decades. However, the design of Reck et al. is difficult to scale up to a large number of modes, which would be required for many applications. Here we present a deterministic algorithm that can find an exact and efficient implementation of any unitary transformation, using only Fourier transforms and phase masks. Since Fourier transforms and phase masks are routinely implemented in several optical setups and they do not suffer from some of the scalability issues associated with building extensive meshes of beam splitters, we believe that our design can be useful for many applications in photonics.