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

Quantum machine learning: a classical perspective

Recently, increased computational power and data availability, as well as algorithmic advances, have led machine learning techniques to impressive results in regression, classification, data-generation and reinforcement learning tasks. Despite these successes, the proximity to the physical limits of chip fabrication alongside the increasing size of datasets are motivating a growing number of researchers to explore the possibility of harnessing the power of quantum computation to speed-up classical machine learning algorithms. Here we review the literature in quantum machine learning and discuss perspectives for a mixed readership of classical machine learning and quantum computation experts. Particular emphasis will be placed on clarifying the limitations of quantum algorithms, how they compare with their best classical counterparts and why quantum resources are expected to provide advantages for learning problems. Learning in the presence of noise and certain computationally hard problems in machine learning are identified as promising directions for the field. Practical questions, like how to upload classical data into quantum form, will also be addressed.Comment: v3 33 pages; typos corrected and references adde

Holonomic Quantum Computation

We show that the notion of generalized Berry phase i.e., non-abelian holonomy, can be used for enabling quantum computation. The computational space is realized by a $n$-fold degenerate eigenspace of a family of Hamiltonians parametrized by a manifold $\cal M$. The point of $\cal M$ represents classical configuration of control fields and, for multi-partite systems, couplings between subsystem. Adiabatic loops in the control $\cal M$ induce non trivial unitary transformations on the computational space. For a generic system it is shown that this mechanism allows for universal quantum computation by composing a generic pair of loops in $\cal M.$Comment: Presentation improved, accepted by Phys. Lett. A, 5 pages LaTeX, no figure