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Quantum Photonics Beyond Conventional Computing

Jeremy L. O’Brien

Published Jul 10, 2015• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Abstract : This project builds toward a simplified quantum information processing device which, though simpler than a universal quantum computer, uses far fewer resources and can still outperform any classical device for a particular specific task. Using the evolution of photons through linear optical networks for computation, we introduce the Boson Sampling model of linear optical quantum computing, realizing the first universally reconfigurable linear optical circuit, and demonstrate how the device can perform quantum simulations of the evolution of vibrational wave-packets in molecules, suggesting that such an approach could yield the first meaningful quantum simulations which are not possible with classical computation.

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© 2010 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Boson-sampling is a simplified model for quantum computing that may hold the key to implementing the first ever post-classical quantum computer. Boson-sampling is a non-universal quantum computer that is significantly more straightforward to build than any universal quantum computer proposed so far. We begin this chapter by motivating boson-sampling and discussing the history of linear optics quantum computing. We then summarize the boson-sampling formalism, discuss what a sampling problem is, explain why boson-sampling is easier than linear optics quantum computing, and discuss the Extended Church-Turing thesis. Next, sampling with other classes of quantum optical states is analyzed. Finally, we discuss the feasibility of building a boson-sampling device using existing technology.

•Jan 1, 2015•56 citations
Abstract : This project builds toward a simplified quantum information processing device which, though simpler than a universal quantum computer, uses far fewer resources and can still outperform any classical device for a particular specific task. Using the evolution of photons through linear optical networks for computation, we introduce the Boson Sampling model of linear optical quantum computing, realizing the first universally reconfigurable linear optical circuit, and demonstrate how the device can perform quantum simulations of the evolution of vibrational wave-packets in molecules, suggesting that such an approach could yield the first meaningful quantum simulations which are not possible with classical computation.
Boson-sampling is a simplified model for quantum computing that may hold the key to implementing the first ever post-classical quantum computer. Boson-sampling is a non-universal quantum computer that is significantly more straightforward to build than any universal quantum computer proposed so far. We begin this chapter by motivating boson-sampling and discussing the history of linear optics quantum computing. We then summarize the boson-sampling formalism, discuss what a sampling problem is, explain why boson-sampling is easier than linear optics quantum computing, and discuss the Extended Church-Turing thesis. Next, sampling with other classes of quantum optical states is analyzed. Finally, we discuss the feasibility of building a boson-sampling device using existing technology.
Quantum computing aims at exploiting quantum phenomena to efficiently perform computations that are unfeasible even for the most powerful classical supercomputers. Among the promising technological approaches, photonic quantum computing offers the advantages of low decoherence, information processing with modest cryogenic requirements, and native integration with classical and quantum networks. To date, quantum computing demonstrations with light have implemented specific tasks with specialized hardware, notably Gaussian Boson Sampling which permitted quantum computational advantage to be reached. Here we report a first user-ready general-purpose quantum computing prototype based on single photons. The device comprises a high-efficiency quantum-dot single-photon source feeding a universal linear optical network on a reconfigurable chip for which hardware errors are compensated by a machine-learned transpilation process. Our full software stack allows remote control of the device to perform computations via logic gates or direct photonic operations. For gate-based computation we benchmark one-, two- and three-qubit gates with state-of-the art fidelities of 99.6±0.1%99.6\pm0.1 \%99.6±0.1%, 93.8±0.6%93.8\pm0.6 \%93.8±0.6% and 86±1.2%86\pm1.2 \%86±1.2% respectively. We also implement a variational quantum eigensolver, which we use to calculate the energy levels of the hydrogen molecule with high accuracy. For photon native computation, we implement a classifier algorithm using a 333-photon-based quantum neural network and report a first 666-photon Boson Sampling demonstration on a universal reconfigurable integrated circuit. Finally, we report on a first heralded 3-photon entanglement generation, a key milestone toward measurement-based quantum computing.
It is believed that the exotic properties of quantum systems can be harnessed to perform certain computational tasks more efficiently than classical theories allow. The production, manipulation and detection of single photons constitutes a potential platform for performing such non-classical information processing. The development of integrated quantum photonics has provided a miniaturised, monolithic architecture that is promising for the realisation of near-term analog quantum devices as well as full-scale universal quantum computers. In this thesis we investigate the viability of these photonic quantum computational approaches from an experimental and theoretical perspective. We implement the first universally reconfigurable linear optical network; a key capability for the rapid prototyping of photonic quantum protocols. We propose and demonstrate the use of these devices as a new platform for the programmable quantum simulation of molecular vibrational dynamics. We then tackle an important outstanding problem in linear optical quantum computing; quantifying how partial-distinguishability amongst photons aff ects logical error rates. Finally, we propose a series of schemes aimed at counteracting these distinguishability errors in order to achieve practical quantum technologies with imperfect photonic components.
Universal quantum computing requires an architecture that supports both linear circuits and, crucially, strong nonlinear resources. For quantum photonic systems, integrating such nonlinearities with scalable linear circuitry has been a major bottleneck, leaving most optical experiments without nonlinear operations and, consequently, incapable of achieving universality. Here, we report an extensible photonic computer that supports a universal gate set by seamlessly combining fully programmable, scalable linear optical networks with integrated nonlinear modules. This platform enables a broad range of quantum computing and simulation tasks. We demonstrate the quasi-deterministic generation of optical Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill states, which are essential resources for bosonic error correction, yet had previously been realized only probabilistically. Furthermore, we simulate complex many-body quantum dynamics, exemplified by the Bose-Hubbard model. Such quantum simulation tasks have long been considered beyond the reach of photonic hardware limited to linear operations. These capabilities, enabled by our extensible architecture, establish a viable route towards photonic quantum simulation and fault-tolerant quantum computing.
© 2010 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Boson-sampling is a simplified model for quantum computing that may hold the key to implementing the first ever post-classical quantum computer. Boson-sampling is a non-universal quantum computer that is significantly more straightforward to build than any universal quantum computer proposed so far. We begin this chapter by motivating boson-sampling and discussing the history of linear optics quantum computing. We then summarize the boson-sampling formalism, discuss what a sampling problem is, explain why boson-sampling is easier than linear optics quantum computing, and discuss the Extended Church-Turing thesis. Next, sampling with other classes of quantum optical states is analyzed. Finally, we discuss the feasibility of building a boson-sampling device using existing technology.