Guest Editors During the past two decades, there has emerged the new subject of quantum information and computation which both offers the possibility of powerful new modes of computing and communication and also suggests deep links between the well established disciplines of quantum theory and information theory and computer science. In recent years, the growth of the subject has been explosive, with significant progress in theory and experiment. The area has a highly interdisciplinary character with contributions from physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists in particular. Developments have occurred in diverse areas including quantum algorithms, quantum communication, quantum cryptography, entanglement and nonlocality. This progress has been reflected in contributions to Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General which traditionally provides a natural home for this area of research. Furthermore, the journal's committment to this field has recently been strengthened by the appointments of Sandu Popescu and Nicolas Gisin to the Editorial Board, and in this special issue we take the opportunity to present a snapshot of the present state of the art.
Guest Editors During the past two decades, there has emerged the new subject of quantum information and computation which both offers the possibility of powerful new modes of computing and communication and also suggests deep links between the well established disciplines of quantum theory and information theory and computer science. In recent years, the growth of the subject has been explosive, with significant progress in theory and experiment. The area has a highly interdisciplinary character with contributions from physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists in particular. Developments have occurred in diverse areas including quantum algorithms, quantum communication, quantum cryptography, entanglement and nonlocality. This progress has been reflected in contributions to Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General which traditionally provides a natural home for this area of research. Furthermore, the journal's committment to this field has recently been strengthened by the appointments of Sandu Popescu and Nicolas Gisin to the Editorial Board, and in this special issue we take the opportunity to present a snapshot of the present state of the art.
Quantum theory and quantum computing in recent years, has raised more and more increasing interest within the scientific community because of various reasons. First, the highly interdisciplinary nature of the subject which involves diverse topics such as, on the theoretical side, information theory and foundational issues of quantum mechanics and on the experimental side, the physics of quantum, optical, atomic and solid state systems. Secondly, the field is extremely promising for revolutionary technological implications in the near future. It is now perfectly clear that one can use quantum mechanics to process and transmit information in a way which does not have a classical analogue, and that using quantum techniques one can implement fully secure cryptographic systems. Recent breakthroughs, such as quantum teleportation, have led to extremely rapid progresses in a fascinating new field and, as a consequence, have attracted the interest of many scientists from varied disciplines. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive overview about the deep involvement of quantum theory in quantum computation to young researchers and newcomers in the field.
Quantum information has dramatically changed information science and technology, looking at the quantum nature of the information carrier as a resource for building new information protocols, designing radically new communication and computation algorithms, and ultra-sensitive measurements in metrology, with a wealth of applications. From a fundamental perspective, this new discipline has led us to regard quantum theory itself as a special theory of information, and has opened routes for exploring solutions to the tension with general relativity, based, for example, on the holographic principle, on non-causal variations of the theory, or else on the powerful algorithm of the quantum cellular automaton, which has revealed new routes for exploring quantum fields theory, both as a new microscopic mechanism on the fundamental side, and as a tool for efficient physical quantum simulations for practical purposes. In this golden age of foundations, an astonishing number of new ideas, frameworks, and results, spawned by the quantum information theory experience, have revolutionized the way we think about the subject, with a new research community emerging worldwide, including scientists from computer science and mathematics.
'Elements of Quantum Information' introduces the reader to the fascinating field of quantum information processing, which lives on the interface between computer science, physics, mathematics, and engineering. This interdisciplinary branch of science thrives on the use of quantum mechanics as a resource for high potential modern applications. With its wide coverage of experiments, applications, and specialized topics - all written by renowned experts - 'Elements of Quantum Information' provides an indispensable up-to-date account of the state of the art of this rapidly advancing field and takes the reader straight up to the frontiers of current research. The articles have first appeared as a special issue of the journal 'Fortschritte der Physik/Progress of Physics'. Since then, they have been carefully updated. The book will be an inspiring source of information and insight for anyone researching and specializing in experiments and theory of quantum information.
The subject of quantum computing brings together ideas from classical information theory, computer science, and quantum physics.This review aims to summarize not just quantum computing, but the whole subject of quantum information theory.Information can be identified as the most general thing which must propagate from a cause to an effect.It therefore has a fundamentally important role in the science of physics.However, the mathematical treatment of information, especially information processing, is quite recent, dating from the mid-20th century.This has meant that the full significance of information as a basic concept in physics is only now being discovered.This is especially true in quantum mechanics.The theory of quantum information and computing puts this significance on a firm footing, and has led to some profound and exciting new insights into the natural world.Among these are the use of quantum states to permit the secure transmission of classical information (quantum cryptography), the use of quantum entanglement to permit reliable transmission of quantum states (teleportation), the possibility of preserving quantum coherence in the presence of irreversible noise processes (quantum error correction), and the use of controlled quantum evolution for efficient computation (quantum computation).The common theme of all these insights is the use of quantum entanglement as a computational resource.
Quantum information science is an area of study based on the idea
that information science depends on quantum effects in physics. It includes
theoretical issues in computational models as well as more experimental topics
in quantum physics including what can and cannot be done with quantum
information. Subfields include: Quantum computing, Quantum error correction,
Quantum complexity theory, Quantum cryptography and its generalization, quantum
communication, Quantum communication complexity, Quantum entanglement, Quantum
dense coding, Quantum teleportation.
In the
present book, fifteen typical literatures about Quantum Communication published
on international authoritative journals were selected to introduce the
worldwide newest progress, which contains reviews or original researches on
Communication, mechanics, optics, ect. We hope this book can demonstrate
advances in Quantum Communication as well as give references to the
researchers, students and other related people.
Recent work in quantum information science has produced a revolution in our understanding of quantum entanglement. Scientists now view entanglement as a physical resource with many important applications. These range from quantum computers, which would be able to compute exponentially faster than classical computers, to quantum cryptographic techniques, which could provide unbreakable codes for the transfer of secret information over public channels. These important advances in the study of quantum entanglement and information touch on deep foundational issues in both physics and philosophy. This interdisciplinary volume brings together fourteen of the world's leading physicists and philosophers of physics to address the most important developments and debates in this exciting area of research. It offers a broad spectrum of approaches to resolving deep foundational challenges - philosophical, mathematical, and physical - raised by quantum information, quantum processing, and entanglement. This book is ideal for historians, philosophers of science and physicists.