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arXiv:quant-ph/9806054

The Halting Problem for Quantum Computers

Noah Linden, Sandu Popescu

Published Jun 16, 1998• 24 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We argue that the halting problem for quantum computers which was first raised by Myers, is by no means solved, as has been claimed recently. We explicitly demonstrate the difficulties that arise in a quantum computer when different branches of the computation halt at different, unknown, times.
DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/9806054

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The halting problem is a decision problem first posed and proved by Alan Turing in 1936. With the recent surge of interest in quantum computation, one is led to ask if the problem can also be considered for a quantum computer. It is reported that the halting problem may not be solved consistently in both the Schrodinger and Heisenberg pictures of quantum dynamics. The assumption of the existence of the quantum halting machine leads to a contradiction when a vector representing an observable is the system that is to be unitarily evolved in both pictures.
Quantum computing allows us to solve some problems much faster than existing classical algorithms. Yet, the quantum computer has been believed to be no more powerful than the most general computing model—the Turing machine. Undecidable problems, such as the halting problem, and unrecognizable inputs, such as the real numbers, are beyond the theoretical limit of the Turing machine. I suggest a model for a quantum computer, which is less general than the Turing machine, but may solve the halting problem for any task programmable on it. Moreover, inputs unrecognizable by the Turing machine can be recognized by the model, thus breaking the theoretical limit for a computational task. A quantum computer is not just a successful design of the Turing machine as it is widely perceived now, but is a different, less general but more powerful model for computing, the practical realization of which may need different strategies than those in use now.