Any unitary transformation of quantum computational networks is explicitly decomposed, in an exact and unified form, into a sequence of a limited number of one-qubit quantum gates and the two-qubit diagonal gates that have diagonal unitary representation in usual computational basis. This decomposition may be simplified greatly with the help of the properties of the finite-dimensional multiple-quantum operator algebra spaces of a quantum system and the specific properties of a given quantum algorithm. As elementary building blocks of quantum computation, the two-qubit diagonal gates and one-qubit gates may be constructed physically with one- and two-body interactions in a two-state quantum system and hence could be conveniently realized experimentally. The present work will be helpful for implementing generally any N-qubit quantum computation in those feasible two-state quantum systems and determining conveniently the time evolution of these systems in course of quantum computation.
Any unitary transformation of quantum computational networks is explicitly decomposed, in an exact and unified form, into a sequence of a limited number of one-qubit quantum gates and the two-qubit diagonal gates that have diagonal unitary representation in usual computational basis. This decomposition may be simplified greatly with the help of the properties of the finite-dimensional multiple-quantum operator algebra spaces of a quantum system and the specific properties of a given quantum algorithm. As elementary building blocks of quantum computation, the two-qubit diagonal gates and one-qubit gates may be constructed physically with one- and two-body interactions in a two-state quantum system and hence could be conveniently realized experimentally. The present work will be helpful for implementing generally any N-qubit quantum computation in those feasible two-state quantum systems and determining conveniently the time evolution of these systems in course of quantum computation.
Any quantum computational network can be constructed with a sequence of the two-qubit diagonal quantum gates and one-qubit gates in two-state quantum systems. The universal construction of these quantum gates in the quantum systems and of the quantum computational networks with these gates may be achieved with the help of the operator algebra structure of Hamiltonians of the systems and the properties of the multiple-quantum operator algebra subspaces of the Liouville operator space and the specific properties of the quantum algorithm corresponding to the quantum network. As an example, the two-qubit diagonal gates are exactly prepared in detail in superconducting Josephson junctions.
A quantum computer is similar to an ordinary computer, except that instead of bits it uses two-level quantum systems (qubits), and the usual logical operations on bits are replaced with noiseless quantum dynamics in the form of unitary gates or Hamiltonian interactions. Many sets of resources that are universal for quantum computation (that is, capable of implementing any quantum computation) have been found, but general conditions for universality are still only partially understood. Improving our understanding of these conditions contributes to two broad goals. On the one hand, understanding what class of physical systems is suitable for quantum computation allows us choose the systems that are most easily controlled or built in the laboratory. On the other hand, identifying the unifying characteristics of such a class provides insight into the fundamental physics responsible for the much greater computational power of quantum computers. The original results presented in this thesis are a contribution to our understanding of the physical requirements for universal quantum computation. These results lead to the identification of a new, large class of universal dynamics. More specifically, the main problem that is addressed is the following: consider a physical system that is made up of a finite number of qubits that are subject to a natural, fixed interaction described by a two-body Hamiltonian. Suppose we have the ability to control the system only by applying fast one-qubit operations. Under what conditions is this system capable of universal quantum computation? The first original result of the thesis is to prove that universal quantum computation is possible under these conditions given the single extra constraint that the Hamiltonian must entangle, or connect, all of the qubits. In other words, since a two-body Hamiltonian is expressible as a sum of coupling terms each of which acts nontrivially on a pair of qubits, consider the graph whose vertices correspond to qubits and whose edges connect qubits that are coupled by a term in the Hamiltonian. Then this Hamiltonian, together with fast one-qubit unitaries, is universal for quantum computation precisely when the corresponding graph is connected. This result suggests many potential generalizations, three of which are explored in this thesis. The first generalization is to show that the same result holds for a two-body Hamiltonian that acts on D-dimensional quantum systems (qudits), given fast one-qudit unitaries. A second extension is to the case of a many-body Hamiltonian, that is, a Hamiltonian that has coupling terms that act on more than two qubits. Again, we find that under mild restrictions, such Hamiltonians are universal provided they are connected and that arbitrary one-qubit unitaries are available. We also discover and explore some surprising structure in many-body Hamiltonians that is associated with the parity of the couplings. A third related problem that is addressed is the question of what two-qubit unitaries are universal for quantum computation. This problem was originally solved by J.-L. and R. Brylinski [BB02], who gave a technical proof of the universality of any two-qudit gate that is not the swap gate or a product of one-qudit unitaries, given one-qudit unitaries as a free resource. We develop an elementary and constructive proof for the case of qubits, and prove that our construction is very close to optimal in the number of uses of the two-qubit gate. Given a qualitative understanding of what dynamical resources are universal for quantum computation, it is natural to consider developing a quantitative measure of the usefulness of quantum dynamics for quantum information processing. This is done in the final chapter of the thesis, in which the beginnings of a quantitative theory of quantum dynamics are developed.
The multiple-quantum operator algebra formalism has been exploited to construct generally an unsorted quantum search algorithm. The exponential propagator and its corresponding effective Hamiltonian are constructed explicitly that describe in quantum mechanics the time evolution of a multi- particle two-state quantum system from the initial state to the output of the unsorted quantum search problem. The exponential propagator usually may not be compatible with the mathematical structure and principle of the search problem and hence is not a real quantum search network, but it can be further decomposed into a product of a series of the oracle unitary operations such as the selective phase-shift operations and the nonselective unitary operations which can be expressed further as a sequence of elementary building blocks such as one-qubit quantum gates and the two-qubit diagonal phase gates, resulting in that the decomposed propagator is compatible with the mathematical structure and principle of the search problem and thus, becomes a real quantum search network. The decomposition for the propagator can be achieved with the help of the operator algebra structure and symmetry of the effective Hamiltonian, and the properties of the multiple-quantum operator algebra spaces, especially the characteristic transformation behavior of the multiple-quantum operators under the z-axis rotations. It has been shown that the computational complexity of the search algorithm is dependent upon that of the numerical multidimensional integration and hence it is believed that the search algorithm could solve efficiently the unsorted search problem. An NMR device is also proposed to solve efficiently the unsorted search problem in polynomial time.
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.
Quantum computation is based on transformation of quantum states. Quantum bits are two-level quantum systems, and as the simplest elementary building blocks for a quantum computer, they provide a convenient labeling for pairs of states and their physical realizations. Closed quantum systems evolve unitarily as determined by their Hamiltonians, but to perform quantum computation one must be able to control the Hamiltonian to effect an arbitrary selection from a universal family of unitary transformations.
We show that a set of gates that consists of all one-bit quantum gates [U(2)] and the two-bit exclusive-OR gate [that maps Boolean values (x,y) to (x,x\ensuremath{\bigoplus}y)] is universal in the sense that all unitary operations on arbitrarily many bits n [U(2n)] can be expressed as compositions of these gates. We investigate the number of the above gates required to implement other gates, such as generalized Deutsch-Toffoli gates, that apply a specific U(2) transformation to one input bit if and only if the logical and of all remaining input bits is satisfied. These gates play a central role in many proposed constructions of quantum computational networks. We derive upper and lower bounds on the exact number of elementary gates required to build up a variety of two- and three-bit quantum gates, the asymptotic number required for n-bit Deutsch-Toffoli gates, and make some observations about the number required for arbitrary n-bit unitary operations.