3,111 research outputs found
Universality and programmability of quantum computers
Manin, Feynman, and Deutsch have viewed quantum computing as a kind of
universal physical simulation procedure. Much of the writing about quantum
logic circuits and quantum Turing machines has shown how these machines can
simulate an arbitrary unitary transformation on a finite number of qubits. The
problem of universality has been addressed most famously in a paper by Deutsch,
and later by Bernstein and Vazirani as well as Kitaev and Solovay. The quantum
logic circuit model, developed by Feynman and Deutsch, has been more prominent
in the research literature than Deutsch's quantum Turing machines. Quantum
Turing machines form a class closely related to deterministic and probabilistic
Turing machines and one might hope to find a universal machine in this class. A
universal machine is the basis of a notion of programmability. The extent to
which universality has in fact been established by the pioneers in the field is
examined and this key notion in theoretical computer science is scrutinised in
quantum computing by distinguishing various connotations and concomitant
results and problems.Comment: 17 pages, expands on arXiv:0705.3077v1 [quant-ph
Zeno machines and hypercomputation
This paper reviews the Church-Turing Thesis (or rather, theses) with
reference to their origin and application and considers some models of
"hypercomputation", concentrating on perhaps the most straight-forward option:
Zeno machines (Turing machines with accelerating clock). The halting problem is
briefly discussed in a general context and the suggestion that it is an
inevitable companion of any reasonable computational model is emphasised. It is
hinted that claims to have "broken the Turing barrier" could be toned down and
that the important and well-founded role of Turing computability in the
mathematical sciences stands unchallenged.Comment: 11 pages. First submitted in December 2004, substantially revised in
July and in November 2005. To appear in Theoretical Computer Scienc
Quantum Simulation of Dissipative Processes without Reservoir Engineering
We present a quantum algorithm to simulate general finite dimensional
Lindblad master equations without the requirement of engineering the
system-environment interactions. The proposed method is able to simulate both
Markovian and non-Markovian quantum dynamics. It consists in the quantum
computation of the dissipative corrections to the unitary evolution of the
system of interest, via the reconstruction of the response functions associated
with the Lindblad operators. Our approach is equally applicable to dynamics
generated by effectively non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. We confirm the quality of
our method providing specific error bounds that quantify itss accuracy.Comment: 7 pages + Supplemental Material (6 pages
Effective Physical Processes and Active Information in Quantum Computing
The recent debate on hypercomputation has arisen new questions both on the
computational abilities of quantum systems and the Church-Turing Thesis role in
Physics. We propose here the idea of "effective physical process" as the
essentially physical notion of computation. By using the Bohm and Hiley active
information concept we analyze the differences between the standard form
(quantum gates) and the non-standard one (adiabatic and morphogenetic) of
Quantum Computing, and we point out how its Super-Turing potentialities derive
from an incomputable information source in accordance with Bell's constraints.
On condition that we give up the formal concept of "universality", the
possibility to realize quantum oracles is reachable. In this way computation is
led back to the logic of physical world.Comment: 10 pages; Added references for sections 2 and
Characterization of quantum computable decision problems by state discrimination
One advantage of quantum algorithms over classical computation is the
possibility to spread out, process, analyse and extract information in
multipartite configurations in coherent superpositions of classical states.
This will be discussed in terms of quantum state identification problems based
on a proper partitioning of mutually orthogonal sets of states. The question
arises whether or not it is possible to encode equibalanced decision problems
into quantum systems, so that a single invocation of a filter used for state
discrimination suffices to obtain the result.Comment: 9 page
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