Quantum computing with mixed states

M. Siomau, S. Fritzsche

Vasily Evgenevich Tarasov

Usually models for quantum computations deal with unitary gates on pure states. In this paper we generalize the usual model. We consider a model of quantum computations in which the state is an operator of density matrix and the gates are quantum operations, not necessarily unitary. A mixed state (operator of density matrix) of n two-level quantum systems is considered as an element of $4^{n}$-dimensional operator Hilbert space. Unitary quantum gates and nonunitary quantum operations for n-qubit system are considered as generalized quantum gates acting on mixed state. In this paper we study universality for quantum computations by quantum operations on mixed states.

Seth Lloyd

Animesh Datta, Guifré Vidal

In a quantum computation with pure states, the generation of large amounts of entanglement is known to be necessary for a speedup with respect to classical computations. However, examples of quantum computations with mixed states are known, such as the deterministic computation with one quantum qubit (DQC1) model [Knill and Laflamme, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5672 (1998)], in which entanglement is at most marginally present, and yet a computational speedup is believed to occur. Correlations, and not entanglement, have been identified as a necessary ingredient for mixed-state quantum computation speedups. Here we show that correlations, as measured through the operator Schmidt rank, are indeed present in large amounts in the DQC1 circuit. This provides evidence for the preclusion of efficient classical simulation of DQC1 by means of a whole class of classical simulation algorithms, thereby reinforcing the conjecture that DQC1 leads to a genuine quantum computational speedup.

Andris Ambainis, Leonard J. Schulman, Umesh V. Vazirani

We consider quantum computing in the k-qubit model where the starting state of a quantum computer consists of k qubits in a pure state and n-k qubits in a maximally mixed state. We ask the following question: is there a general method for simulating an arbitrary m-qubit pure state quantum computation by a quantum computation in the k-qubit model? We show that, under certain constraints, this is impossible, unless m=O(k+ log n).

N. A. Susulovska, Kh. P. Gnatenko

The geometric measure of entanglement of mixed states is investigated based on its relation to spin correlations. We derive an analytical expression for the entanglement of rank-2 mixed states composed of arbitrary multiqubit pure states within a two-dimensional Hilbert subspace. The dependence of the entanglement of rank-2 mixed multiqubit states on the parameters characterizing arbitrary pure states in the mixture is studied both analytically and using quantum computing. For a particular class of mixed states, namely, equal-probability mixtures of an arbitrary multiqubit state and the Schrödinger cat state, we construct quantum protocols for detecting the geometric measure of entanglement based on its relation to spin correlations. We quantify the entanglement using both the AerSimulator and the ibm_marrakesh quantum computer. The effects of quantum-computing errors are also analyzed. The simulation results reproduce the analytical dependencies, while measurements on the quantum device demonstrate good agreement with theoretical predictions within estimated error bounds.