Quantum computing and quantum information science are two recently discovered and rapidly growing fields of physics that show substantial promise in providing new and valuable technologies in the foreseeable future. Large-scale quantum computers, if ever realized experimentally, are likely to outperform their classical counterparts in a number of important computational tasks, the most important of which may be the accurate simulation of many-body quantum systems such as the ones encountered in physics, chemistry and life sciences. This thesis investigates the problem of controlling quantum systems for the purpose of performing quantum information processing tasks. The problem is approached from a theoretical and simulational viewpoint. The work contained here encompasses a range of levels of abstraction. Firstly, we discuss the decomposition of abstract multiqubit logic gates into sequences of simple elementary gates. Secondly, we study the local commutational properties of two-qubit gates using local gate invariants. Thirdly, we develop methods for the physical implementation of the elementary gates through the control of specific quantum systems, possibly in the presence of noise and decoherence. We present a new, almost optimal n-qubit gate decomposition based on the cosine-sine decomposition, which utilizes a likewise new intermediate quantum circuit structure we call a uniformly controlled gate. We then show how they can be used in constructing a general state transformation circuit. Both of the resulting circuits can be efficiently implemented using nearest-neighbor gates which makes their physical realization simpler. A local gate invariant is introduced which can be used to assess the suitability of two-qubit gates for serving as the entangling gate in elementary gate libraries. Finally, we develop numerical optimization methods for finding near-optimal control sequences for generating oneand two-qubit gates, both in closed quantum systems and in the presence of Markovian noise.
Quantum computing and quantum information science are two recently discovered and rapidly growing fields of physics that show substantial promise in providing new and valuable technologies in the foreseeable future. Large-scale quantum computers, if ever realized experimentally, are likely to outperform their classical counterparts in a number of important computational tasks, the most important of which may be the accurate simulation of many-body quantum systems such as the ones encountered in physics, chemistry and life sciences. This thesis investigates the problem of controlling quantum systems for the purpose of performing quantum information processing tasks. The problem is approached from a theoretical and simulational viewpoint. The work contained here encompasses a range of levels of abstraction. Firstly, we discuss the decomposition of abstract multiqubit logic gates into sequences of simple elementary gates. Secondly, we study the local commutational properties of two-qubit gates using local gate invariants. Thirdly, we develop methods for the physical implementation of the elementary gates through the control of specific quantum systems, possibly in the presence of noise and decoherence. We present a new, almost optimal n-qubit gate decomposition based on the cosine-sine decomposition, which utilizes a likewise new intermediate quantum circuit structure we call a uniformly controlled gate. We then show how they can be used in constructing a general state transformation circuit. Both of the resulting circuits can be efficiently implemented using nearest-neighbor gates which makes their physical realization simpler. A local gate invariant is introduced which can be used to assess the suitability of two-qubit gates for serving as the entangling gate in elementary gate libraries. Finally, we develop numerical optimization methods for finding near-optimal control sequences for generating oneand two-qubit gates, both in closed quantum systems and in the presence of Markovian noise.
The last two decades have seen an enormous increase in the computational power of digital computers. This was due to the rapid technical development in manufacturing processes and controlling semiconducting structures on submicron scale. Concurrently, the electric circuits have encountered the first signs of the realm of quantum mechanics. Those effects may induce noise and thus they are typically considered harmful. However, the manipulation of the coherent quantum states might turn out be the basis of powerful computers – quantum computers. There, the computation is encoded into the unitary time evolution of a quantum mechanical state vector. Eventually, quantum mechanics could enable one, for example, to read secret electronic messages which are encrypted by the widely employed RSA cryptosystem – a task which is extremely laborious for the current digital computers. This thesis presents a theoretical study of the coherent manipulations of pure quantum states in a quantum register, that is, quantum algorithms. An implementation of a quantum algorithm involves the initialization of the input state and its manipulation with quantum gates followed by the measurements. The physical implementation of each gate requires that it is decomposed into low-level gates whose physical realizations are explicitly known. Here, the problem is examined from two directions. Firstly, the numerical optimization scheme for controlling time-evolution of a closed quantum system is discussed. This yields a method for implementing quantum gates acting on up to three quantum bits, qubits. The approach is independent of the physical realization of the quantum computer, but it is considered explicitly for a proposed inductively coupled Josephson charge qubit register. Secondly, the techniques of numerical matrix computation are utilized to find a general method for decomposing an arbitrary n-qubit gate into a sequence of elementary gates, which act on one or two qubits. The results of this thesis help to improve the implementation of quantum algorithms. The quantum circuit construction developed in the thesis is the first one to achieve the asymptotically minimal complexity in the number of elementary gates. In context of acceleration of quantum algorithms we present a gate-level study of Shor's algorithm and show how to accelerate the algorithm by merging several elementary gates into multiqubit gates. Finally, the requirements set by the resulting gate array are compared to the properties of superconducting qubits. This allows us to discuss the feasibility of the Josephson charge qubit register, for instance, as hardware for breaking the RSA cryptosystem.
For several decades it has been appreciated that quantum computers hold incredible promise to perform calculations intractable to classical computation. However, this promise has be slow to realize. Dozens of quantum systems are currently being investigated for use in quantum information processing - none of which have yet demonstrated algorithms involving more than a handful of qubits and it remains unclear which, if any, of these systems will ultimately compose a scalable, robust quantum information processing architecture. In this thesis we employ analytical, optimal and algebraic control techniques to evaluate various quantum systems for their potential use in quantum information processing. In doing so, we have additionally identified several novel characterization procedures capable of probing both the coherent and incoherent dynamics of quantum systems. The first part of this thesis discusses work motivated by attempts to utilize donor qubits in silicon as quantum bits. We first propose a measurement of the state of a single donor electron spin using two-dimensional electron gas of a field-effect transistor and electrically detected magnetic resonance. We analyze the potential sensitivity of this measurement and show that it is a quantum nondemolition measurement of an electron-encoded state. We then present the first of two novel qubit characterization procedures. We consider the problem of rapidly characterizing a large number of similarly prepared qubits using techniques from optimal experiment design. All qubits are assumed to evolve according to the same physical processes, though the Hamiltonian parameters may vary from device to device - an inevitability in solid state qubits. We use the Cram\\'er-Rao bound on the variance of a point estimator to construct the optimal series of experiments to estimate these free parameters, and present a complete analysis of the optimal experimental configuration. Though applied to dipole- and exchange-coupled qubits, this technique is widely applicable to other systems. The second part of the thesis discusses the role that control can play in measuring and mitigating noise in qubit systems. Our first result describes a method for quickly simulating the effects of arbitrary markovian noise on qubit systems through the use of a numerically optimized, multi-state Markovian fluctuator. This ability to rapidly simulate the noisy qubit evolution allows us to compute control sequences capable of maximally decoupling the qubit from the noise source. We then introduce the second characterization procedure of the these, showing that a single measurable and controllable qubit may act as a spectrometer of dephasing noise. We show that the formalism of dynamical decoupling can be used to estimate the short-time correlation function of the noise source, while long time correlations may be estimated by a very simple series of free evolution experiments. This technique is applicable to the wide range of physical implementations which suffer from dephasing noise.The final part of this thesis demonstrates that trapped neutral atoms may be utilized for the robust simulation of complex systems exhibiting a topological phase. We present a method to simulate the toric code Hamiltonian stroboscopically, and demonstrate that our technique preserves the ground state degeneracy . Furthermore, we introduce a dissipative mechanism allowing for thermalization of the system to a finite temperature or direct cooling to the ground state manifold.
An exquisite control over the dynamics of a quantum system is essential for realizing any quantum technology. This thesis presents some practical and efficient strategies for coherent quantum control: a paradigm for controlling quantum dynamics using electromagnetic fields. Coherent control is a common framework for describing the physical implementation of quantum logic gates in several quantum information processing platforms including superconducting qubits and trapped ions. For the purpose of demonstration, however, liquid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is used in this thesis as it is an ideal test-bed for developing, testing and benchmarking coherent control tools and techniques. Coherent control was revitalised in 2005 by the development of Gradient Ascent Pulse Engineering (GRAPE), a powerful optimal control technique that is widely used for designing shaped pulses for a variety of tasks. GRAPE, like any other closed-loop optimal control algorithm, requires multiple evaluations of the computationally expensive matrix exponential and the full time-evolution propagator. To this end, I present strategies to sidestep the explicit evaluation of matrix exponentials, thereby offering substantial speed-ups over conventional implementations of the GRAPE algorithm. The results are demonstrated experimentally in NMR, but also in simulations of ultracold molecules and superconducting qubits. Beyond GRAPE, this thesis also considers methods for designing spin-echo sequences for implementing any arbitrary network of controlled-Z gates in a system of qubits with zz-couplings. First, a method based on linear-programming provides near time-optimal sequences in fully-coupled systems having up to a few hundred qubits. Further, an analytic method based on graph colouring finds near time-optimal spin echo sequences in engineered systems with any number of qubits having only nearest and next-nearest neighbour-couplings.
Recent advances in the physical sciences and engineering have created great hopes for new computational paradigms and substrates. One such new approach is the quantum computer, which holds the promise of enhanced computational power. Analogous to the way a classical computer is built from electrical circuits containing wires and logic gates, a quantum computer is built from quantum circuits containing quantum wires and elementary quantum gates to transport and manipulate quantum information. Therefore, design of quantum gates and quantum circuits is a prerequisite for any real application of quantum computation.
In this dissertation we apply geometric control methods from differential geometry and Lie group representation theory to analyze the properties of quantum gates and to design optimal quantum circuits. Using the Cartan decomposition and the Weyl group, we show that the geometric structure of nonlocal two-qubit gates is a 3-Torus. After further reducing the symmetry, the geometric representation of nonlocal gates is seen to be conveniently visualized as a tetrahedron. Each point in this tetrahedron except on the base corresponds to a different equivalent class of nonlocal gates. This geometric representation is one of the cornerstones for the discussion on quantum computation in this dissertation.
We investigate the properties of those two-qubit operations that can generate maximal entanglement. It is an astonishing finding that if we randomly choose a two-qubit operation, the probability that we obtain a perfect entangler is exactly one half. We prove that given a two-body interaction Hamiltonian, it is always possible to explicitly construct a quantum circuit for exact simulation of any arbitrary nonlocal two-qubit gate by turning on the two-body interaction for at most three times, together with at most four local gates. We also provide an analytic approach to construct a universal quantum circuit from any entangling gate supplemented with local gates. Closed form solutions have been derived for each step in this explicit construction procedure. Moreover, the minimum upper bound is found to construct a universal quantum circuit from any Controlled-Unitary gate. A near optimal explicit construction of universal quantum circuits from a given Controlled-Unitary is provided. For the Controlled-NOT and Double-CNOT gate, we then develop simple analytic ways to construct universal quantum circuits with exactly three applications, which is the least possible for these gates. We further discover a new quantum gate (named B gate) that achieves the desired universality with minimal number of gates. Optimal implementation of single-qubit quantum gates is also investigated. Finally, as a real physical application, a constructive way to implement any arbitrary two-qubit operation on a spin electronics system is discussed.
We have seen how information can be encoded onto a quantum system by selecting the state in which it is prepared. Retrieving the information is achieved by performing a measurement, and the optimal measurement in any given situation is usually a generalized measurement. In between preparation and measurement, the information resides in the quantum state of the system, which evolves in a manner determined by the Hamiltonian. The associated unitary transformation may usefully be viewed as quantum information processing; if we can engineer an appropriate Hamiltonian then we can use the quantum evolution to assist in performing computational tasks. Our objective in quantum information processing is to implement a desired unitary transformation. Typically this will mean coupling together a number, perhaps a large number, of qubits and thereby generating highly entangled states. It is fortunate, although by no means obvious, that we can realize any desired multiqubit unitary transformation as a product of a small selection of simple transformations and, moreover, that each of these need only act on a single qubit or on a pair of qubits. The situation is reminiscent of digital electronics, in which logic operations are decomposed into actions on a small number of bits. If we can realize and control a very large number of such operations in a single device then we have a computer. Similar control of a large number of qubits will constitute a quantum computer. It is the revolutionary potential of quantum computers, more than any other single factor, that has fuelled the recent explosion of interest in our subject. We shall examine the remarkable properties of quantum computers in the next chapter. In digital electronics, we represent bit values by voltages: the logical value 1 is a high voltage (typically +5 V) and 0 is the ground voltage (0 V). The voltage bits are coupled and manipulated by transistor-based devices, or gates. The simplest gates act on only one bit or combine two bits to generate a single new bit, the value of which is determined by the two input bits. For a single bit, with value 0 or 1, the only possible operations are the identity (which does not require a gate) and the bit flip.
The pressure of fundamental limits on classical computation and the promise of exponential speedups from quantum effects have recently brought quantum circuits (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A, Math. Phys. Sci., vol. 425, p. 73, 1989) to the attention of the electronic design automation community (Proc. 40th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conf., 2003), (Phys. Rev. A, At. Mol. Opt. Phy., vol. 68, p. 012318, 2003), (Proc. 41st Design Automation Conf., 2004), (Proc. 39th Design Automation Conf., 2002), (Proc. Design, Automation, and Test Eur., 2004), (Phys. Rev. A, At. Mol. Opt. Phy., vol. 69, p. 062321, 2004), (IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integr. Circuits Syst., vol. 22, p. 710, 2003). Efficient quantum-logic circuits that perform two tasks are discussed: 1) implementing generic quantum computations, and 2) initializing quantum registers. In contrast to conventional computing, the latter task is nontrivial because the state space of an n-qubit register is not finite and contains exponential superpositions of classical bitstrings. The proposed circuits are asymptotically optimal for respective tasks and improve earlier published results by at least a factor of 2. The circuits for generic quantum computation constructed by the algorithms are the most efficient known today in terms of the number of most expensive gates [quantum controlled-NOTs (CNOTs)]. They are based on an analog of the Shannon decomposition of Boolean functions and a new circuit block, called quantum multiplexor (QMUX), which generalizes several known constructions. A theoretical lower bound implies that the circuits cannot be improved by more than a factor of 2. It is additionally shown how to accommodate the severe architectural limitation of using only nearest neighbor gates, which is representative of current implementation technologies. This increases the number of gates by almost an order of magnitude, but preserves the asymptotic optimality of gate counts.