As we have seen, even a single qubit is a surprisingly interesting object. However, the real power of quantum information processing begins with systems of two or more qubits. Before studying these in detail we need to expand our notation a little. Consider a system of two qubits, labeled a and b , each of which has two basis states, |0⧽ and |1⧽. The whole system then has four basis states, which can be written as |0 a 0 b ⧽, |0 a 1 b ⧽, |1 a 0 b ⧽ and |1 a 1 b ⧽, and can be found in any general superposition of these states, so that it occupies a four-dimensional Hilbert space. In the same way, a system of three qubits inhabits an eight-dimensional Hilbert space, and so on. This exponential increase in the size of the Hilbert space with a linear increase in the number of qubits underlies the power of quantum computers. Direct products The size of the Hilbert spaces involved can also be a huge problem, however, making it difficult to describe states of systems with many qubits. A partial solution is to note that some states can be described in a simpler way, using the concept of direct products . These states, in which the individual qubits can in principle be discussed separately, make up a tiny minority of the states accessible to a multi-qubit system, but include many important states, most notably the basis states. States of this kind are said to be separable , and states which are not separable are said to be entangled . Entangled states are much more interesting than separable ones, but it is wise to begin with the simpler case.
As we have seen, even a single qubit is a surprisingly interesting object. However, the real power of quantum information processing begins with systems of two or more qubits. Before studying these in detail we need to expand our notation a little. Consider a system of two qubits, labeled a and b , each of which has two basis states, |0⧽ and |1⧽. The whole system then has four basis states, which can be written as |0 a 0 b ⧽, |0 a 1 b ⧽, |1 a 0 b ⧽ and |1 a 1 b ⧽, and can be found in any general superposition of these states, so that it occupies a four-dimensional Hilbert space. In the same way, a system of three qubits inhabits an eight-dimensional Hilbert space, and so on. This exponential increase in the size of the Hilbert space with a linear increase in the number of qubits underlies the power of quantum computers. Direct products The size of the Hilbert spaces involved can also be a huge problem, however, making it difficult to describe states of systems with many qubits. A partial solution is to note that some states can be described in a simpler way, using the concept of direct products . These states, in which the individual qubits can in principle be discussed separately, make up a tiny minority of the states accessible to a multi-qubit system, but include many important states, most notably the basis states. States of this kind are said to be separable , and states which are not separable are said to be entangled . Entangled states are much more interesting than separable ones, but it is wise to begin with the simpler case.
In this section we introduce the framework of quantum mechanics as it pertains to the types of systems we will consider for quantum computing. Here we also introduce the notion of a quantum bit or ‘qubit’, which is a fundamental concept for quantum computing. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was believed by most that the laws of Newton and Maxwell were the correct laws of physics. By the 1930s, however, it had become apparent that these classical theories faced serious problems in trying to account for the observed results of certain experiments. As a result, a new mathematical framework for physics called quantum mechanics was formulated, and new theories of physics called quantum physics were developed in this framework. Quantum physics includes the physical theories of quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, but we do not need to know these physical theories in order to learn about quantum information. Quantum information is the result of reformulating information theory in this quantum framework. We saw in Section 1.6 an example of a two-state quantum system: a photon that is constrained to follow one of two distinguishable paths. We identified the two distinguishable paths with the 2-dimensional basis vectors and then noted that a general ‘path state’ of the photon can be described by a complex vector with |α0|2 +|α1|2 = 1. This simple example captures the essence of the first postulate, which tells us how physical states are represented in quantum mechanics. Depending on the degree of freedom (i.e. the type of state) of the system being considered, H may be infinite-dimensional. For example, if the state refers to the position of a particle that is free to occupy any point in some region of space, the associated Hilbert space is usually taken to be a continuous (and thus infinite-dimensional) space. It is worth noting that in practice, with finite resources, we cannot distinguish a continuous state space from one with a discrete state space having a sufficiently small minimum spacing between adjacent locations. For describing realistic models of quantum computation, we will typically only be interested in degrees of freedom for which the state is described by a vector in a finite-dimensional (complex) Hilbert space.
To begin with, we need a quantum register made of many qubits to store information. Recall that a classical computer also requires memory to store information. The simplest way to realize a qubit physically is to use a two-level quantum system. For example, an electron, a spin 1/2 nucleus or two mutually orthogonal polarization states (horizontal and vertical, for example) of a single photon can be a qubit. We may also employ a two-dimensional subspace, such as the ground state and the first excited state, of a multi-dimensional Hilbert space, such as atomic energy levels. In the latter case, special care must be taken to avoid leakage of the state to the other part of the Hilbert space. In any case, the two states are identified as the basis vectors, |0〉 and |1〉, of the Hilbert space so that a general single qubit state takes the form |ψ〉 = α|0〉 + β|1〉, where |α|2 + |β|2 = 1. A multiqubit state is expanded in terms of the tensor products of these basis vectors. Each qubit must be separately addressable. Moreover it should be scalable up to a large number of qubits. The two-dimensional vector space of a qubit may be extended to be three-dimensional (qutrit) or, more generally, d-dimensional (qudit). A system may be made of several different kinds of qubits. Qubits in an ion trap quantum computer, for instance, may be defined as: (1) hyperfine/Zeeman sublevels in the electronic ground state of ions (2) a ground state and an excited state of a weakly allowed optical transition and (3) normal mode of ion oscillation. A similar scenario is also proposed for Josephson junction qubits, in which two flux qubits are coupled through a quantized LC circuit. Simultaneous usage of several types of qubits may be the most promising way to achieve a viable quantum computer.
Hilbert spaces provide the fundamental mathematical framework for describing quantum mechanical systems. Their structure, characterized by an inner product and completeness, allows for the representation of quantum states as vectors and physical observables as self-adjoint operators. Key quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement find natural expression within this formalism. Superposition, where a quantum system can exist in multiple states simultaneously, is represented by linear combinations of basis vectors in the Hilbert space. Entanglement, a non-classical correlation between quantum systems, is described by non-separable state vectors in a tensor product of Hilbert spaces. These concepts are pivotal in quantum computing, where the unit of information, the qubit, is a two-level quantum system whose state is a vector in a two-dimensional complex Hilbert space (ℂ²). Quantum gates, which perform operations on qubits, are represented by unitary operators acting on these state vectors. The power of quantum computation, particularly in algorithms like Shor's or Grover's, stems from the ability to exploit superposition and entanglement, processes intrinsically described within the Hilbert space framework. Thus, a thorough understanding of Hilbert spaces is indispensable for grasping the principles of quantum mechanics and for advancing the field of quantum information and computation [1, 7]. The transition from classical bits to quantum qubits, and from classical logic gates to quantum unitary operations, is entirely predicated on the mathematical properties endowed by Hilbert spaces.
Hilbert spaces provide the fundamental mathematical framework for describing quantum mechanical systems. Their structure, characterized by an inner product and completeness, allows for the representation of quantum states as vectors and physical observables as self-adjoint operators. Key quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement find natural expression within this formalism. Superposition, where a quantum system can exist in multiple states simultaneously, is represented by linear combinations of basis vectors in the Hilbert space. Entanglement, a non-classical correlation between quantum systems, is described by non-separable state vectors in a tensor product of Hilbert spaces. These concepts are pivotal in quantum computing, where the unit of information, the qubit, is a two-level quantum system whose state is a vector in a two-dimensional complex Hilbert space (ℂ²). Quantum gates, which perform operations on qubits, are represented by unitary operators acting on these state vectors. The power of quantum computation, particularly in algorithms like Shor's or Grover's, stems from the ability to exploit superposition and entanglement, processes intrinsically described within the Hilbert space framework. Thus, a thorough understanding of Hilbert spaces is indispensable for grasping the principles of quantum mechanics and for advancing the field of quantum information and computation [1, 7]. The transition from classical bits to quantum qubits, and from classical logic gates to quantum unitary operations, is entirely predicated on the mathematical properties endowed by Hilbert spaces.
Quantum computing operates in three stages: (i) preparation of the initial states of the n qubits of a register, (ii) step by step transformation of the state of this register by unitary operators which compose the quantum program, and (iii), measurement of all or some of the qubits of the register. The existence of quantum algorithms which are exponentially less complex than their classical counterparts for some classes of problems, stems from entangled states established by multi-qubit unitary operators within the quantum program. A register of n qubits is a quantum system composed of n quantum subsystems. The state |/spl psi/> of a quantum system composed of two quantum subsystems A and B is said to be entangled when |/spl psi/> is not reducible to a pair composed of a state |/spl psi/> of A and a state |/spl psi//sub B/> of B: such situations have no counterpart in the classical world. In quantum theory, such a pair of states is denoted by a tensor product: |/spl psi/> is entangled if it cannot be factorized into the tensor product |/spl psi//sub A/>/spl ominus/|/spl psi//sub B/>. This paper establishes conditions according to which it is possible to tell whether or not the state of a register of n qubits is entangled. The state of a single qubit is a vector /spl alpha/|0>+/spl beta/|1> of unit norm in a 2-dimensional vector space, where |0> and |1> are the two basis states and where a and are complex amplitudes. Then, if both A and B are qubits, the most general form of the state of a register composed of the 2 qubits A and B is also a vector of unit norm, but now in a 4-dimensional space: |/spl psi/>=/spl alpha/|00>+/spl beta/|01+/spl gamma/|10>+/spl sigma/|11>. It is straightforward to prove that |/spl psi/> can be factorized into |/spl psi//sub A/>/spl ominus/|/spl psi//sub B/> if and only if /spl alpha//spl delta/=/spl beta//spl gamma/. In such a case, |/spl psi/> is said to be separable, i.e. not entangled. This paper generalizes this form of condition to registers of n qubits. If |/spl psi/> is the state of a register of n qubits, two different questions about the separability of |/spl psi/> are answered: (i) is |/spl psi/> separable into a product |/spl psi//sub 1/>/spl ominus/|/spl psi//sub 2/>/spl ominus/L/spl ominus/|/spl psi//sub n/> of n single qubit states? and (ii), is |/spl psi/> separable into a product |/spl psi//sub A/>/spl ominus/|/spl psi//sub B/> of the states of two subregisters A and B, respectively containing p and q adjacent qubits with p+q=n? For both questions, necessary and sufficient conditions are given.
In the case of mixed states ρAB of the composite system A ⊗ B, the previous relation generalizes to ρAB = ∑ k pkρ A k ⊗ρk , where pk are probabilities and ρk ’s (ρk ’s) are generic density matrix of the system A (B). The entanglement derives from “subtle” nonlocal correlations between the parts of a quantum system and combines three basic structural elements of quantum theory: the superposition principle, the quantum non-separability property and the exponential scaling of the state space with the number of partitions. This unique resource can be used to perform computational and cryptographic tasks otherwise impossible with classical systems. An entangled state shared by two or more separated parties is a valuable resource for fundamental quantum protocols, such as quantum teleportation [2], quantum computing [3] and quantum cryptography. By using entangled states we can deeply investigate the nonlocal properties of the quantum world. In fact, an entangled system exhibits correlations between two (or more) parties, which cannot be reproduced by a classical theory or, in general, by a Local Hidden Variables Theory (LHVT). Quantum optics represents an excellent experimental test bench for various novel concepts introduced within the framework of quantum information theory. Quantum states of photons, generally produced by a probabilistic process, namely spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC), may be easily and accurately manipulated using linear and nonlinear optical devices and measured by efficient single-photon detectors. Photonic qubits represent the typical carrier of quantum information and can be distributed over long distances, either in free-space or in low-loss optical fibers. Two-particle experiments correspond to operate with qubits belonging to a (2 × 2) Hilbert space. Many quantum information tasks and fundamental tests of quantum mechanics, such as the simulation of properties of quantum systems, the realization of quantum algorithms of increasing complexity and the investigation of the quantum world at a mesoscopic level, deal with a large number of qubits. In order to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by quantum mechanics, more qubits must be added to a quantum state. Two approaches may be followed to increase the number of qubits. The first one consists of increasing the number of entangled particles. In this way, multi-qubit entangled states are created by distributing the qubits between the particles so that each particle carries one qubit. A second strategy consists of encoding more than one qubit in each particle, by exploiting different degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the photon such as the polarization, the path, the emission time, the orbital angular momentum. This has been used to create two-photon fourand six-qubit states and up to five-photon ten-qubit graph states. The entanglement of two particles in different DOFs corresponds to socalled hyperentanglement. It is worth noting that multi-qubit hyperentanglement allows to achieve higher