ISCAS 2000 - IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, May 28-31, 2000, Geneva, Switzerland
QUANTUM COMPUTING: AN INTRODUCTION
Thomas Beth
Institut fur Algorithmen und Kognitive Systeme, Universitat Karlsruhe
Am Fasanengarten 5, 76 128 Karlsruhe, Germany
email: EISS-Of f ice@ira. uka.de
ABSTRACT ture in future generations will conclude the talk based on
a speculative worsthest case forecast of possible applica-
This talk will open the sessions on Quantum Computing.
tions, e. g., in public key and conventional cryptography.
For this, we give a system theoretic approach to the concept
of quantum computing.
A quantum computer is envisaged to be a system of 1. REFERENCES
quantum circuits, acting on a state space, which is a finite -
say 2n-dimensional -complex Hilbert space. The circuitry [ l ] Thomas Beth, Sebastian Egner, and Jorn Miiller-
is a sequence of unitary transforms Ut E SU(2n) followed Quade, “Workshop on Quantum Cryptography and
by a measurement. These transforms, so-called quantum Quantum Information Theory”, E.1.S.S.-Report
gates, are controlled by a classical computer, usually espe- Nr. 1994/5, 1993.
cially electromagnetic fields. The state space of a Quan-
tum Computer has the structure of a Hermitian vector space. [2] Thomas Beth and Gilles Brassard, Eds., Quan-
Thus it allows “simultaneous” superposition of orthogonal tum Algorithms, vol. 2 10 of Dagstuhl-Seminar-
basis states (corresponding to classical states) with the pos- Report, Dagstuhl, 10.-15. May 1998. Intemationales
sibility of constructive and destructive interference between Begegnungs- und Forschungszentrum fur Informatik.
different paths of computation [l, 21. What is more: This
principle allows the usage of so-called entangled states by [3] Thomas Beth and Markus Grassl, “The Quantum
preparing the superposition of special “bent” configurations Hamming and Hexacodes”, Fortschritte der Physik,
of basis vectors in the product Hilbert space, e. g., as they vol. 46, no. 4-5, pp. 459-491, 1998.
are known from error control [3] and cryptography. This
latter “entanglement” not only promises to make a quantum [4] Hoi-Kwong Lo, Sandu Popescu, and Tim Spiller, Eds.,
computer much more powerful than a probabilistic one, but Introduction to Quantum Computation and Informa-
it also allows a method of parallelism, unheard of in the tion, World Scientific, Singapore, 1998.
world of classical computers [4, 5, 61.
The reason for this lies not only in the fact that the 2n- [5] Markus Piischel, Martin Rotteler, and Thomas Beth,
dimensional Hilbert space is the n-fold tensor product of 2- “Fast Quantum Fourier Transforms for a Class of
dimensional spaces as it is given by spin-l/2-particles, like Non-abelian Groups”, in Proceedings AAECC-13.
photons, representing a quantum bit. First of all, we shall 1999, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer,
address the fact that the power of quantum computing lies See also LANL preprint quant-phl9807064.
in the properties of entangled states as opposed to those of
separable states which essentially would resemble classical [6] Martin Rotteler and Thomas Beth, “Polynomial-
circuits without giving the feature of exponential speed-up Time Solution to the Hidden Subgroup Problem for a
[71. Class of non-abelian Groups”, LANL preprint quant-
We shall briefly describe possible physical realisations ph/9812070,1998.
of quantum (optic, electronic, magnetic, . . . ) devices al-
lowing the engineering of Hamiltonians needed for quan- [7] Thomas Beth, “Quantum Information Processing:
tum systems. Basic quantum gates, especially the Quantum Facts and Visions”, EU IST E T Proactive Ini-
Homer-Toffoli Gate [8, 91, will be discussed to display the tiatives - Information Days, Quantum Informa-
principles and methodology for designing quantum circuits. tion Processing & Communications (QIPC), Lec-
An outlook towards the possible availability of nano- ture, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wis-
and mesoscopic technologies supporting this new architec- senschaften, Berlin, 12 March 1999.
0-7803-5482-6/99/$10.00‘2000 IEEE
1-735
Authorized licensed use limited to: Centro de Est. e Sistemas Avançados Recife (CESAR). Downloaded on April 01,2023 at 14:55:09 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
[81 Thomas Beth, “Quantenalgorithmen - Algorithmen
fur Quantensysteme (AQUA)”, Antrag Deutsche For-
schungsgemeinschaft, SPP 1078, Be 887/13-1, 1998.
[9] Josef Gruska, Quantum Computing, McGraw-Hill,
London, 1999.
[IO] Thomas Beth, Dieter Jungnickel, and Hanfried Lenz,
Design Theory,Encyclopaedia of Mathematics. Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge, 2nd edition,
1999.
1-736
Authorized licensed use limited to: Centro de Est. e Sistemas Avançados Recife (CESAR). Downloaded on April 01,2023 at 14:55:09 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
