On local-hidden-variable no-go theorems

The strongest attack against quantum mechanics came in 1935 in the form of a paper by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. It was argued that the theory of quantum mechanics could not be called a complete theory of Nature, for every element of reality is not represented in the formalism as such. The authors then put forth a proposition: we must search for a theory where, upon knowing everything about the system, including possible hidden variables, one could make precise predictions concerning elements of reality. This project was ultimatly doomed in 1964 with the work of Bell Bell, who showed that the most general local hidden variable theory could not reproduce correlations that arise in quantum mechanics. There exist mainly three forms of no-go theorems for local hidden variable theories. Although almost every physicist knows the consequences of these no-go theorems, not every physicist is aware of the distinctions between the three or even their exact definitions. Thus we will discuss here the three principal forms of no-go theorems for local hidden variable theories of Nature. We will define Bell inequalities, Bell inequalities without inequalities and pseudo-telepathy. A discussion of the similarities and differences will follow.Comment: 7 pages, no figure, replaced "Bell inequalities" with "Bell theorems" and updated the reference

Quantum Computation of a Complex System : the Kicked Harper Model

The simulation of complex quantum systems on a quantum computer is studied, taking the kicked Harper model as an example. This well-studied system has a rich variety of dynamical behavior depending on parameters, displays interesting phenomena such as fractal spectra, mixed phase space, dynamical localization, anomalous diffusion, or partial delocalization, and can describe electrons in a magnetic field. Three different quantum algorithms are presented and analyzed, enabling to simulate efficiently the evolution operator of this system with different precision using different resources. Depending on the parameters chosen, the system is near-integrable, localized, or partially delocalized. In each case we identify transport or spectral quantities which can be obtained more efficiently on a quantum computer than on a classical one. In most cases, a polynomial gain compared to classical algorithms is obtained, which can be quadratic or less depending on the parameter regime. We also present the effects of static imperfections on the quantities selected, and show that depending on the regime of parameters, very different behaviors are observed. Some quantities can be obtained reliably with moderate levels of imperfection, whereas others are exponentially sensitive to imperfection strength. In particular, the imperfection threshold for delocalization becomes exponentially small in the partially delocalized regime. Our results show that interesting behavior can be observed with as little as 7-8 qubits, and can be reliably measured in presence of moderate levels of internal imperfections

From Classical State-Swapping to Quantum Teleportation

The quantum teleportation protocol is extracted directly out of a standard classical circuit that exchanges the states of two qubits using only controlled-NOT gates. This construction of teleportation from a classically transparent circuit generalizes straightforwardly to d-state systems.Comment: Missing daggers added to Figures 13, 14, and 15. Otherwise this is the version that appeared in Physical Revie

Quantum computation and analysis of Wigner and Husimi functions: toward a quantum image treatment

We study the efficiency of quantum algorithms which aim at obtaining phase space distribution functions of quantum systems. Wigner and Husimi functions are considered. Different quantum algorithms are envisioned to build these functions, and compared with the classical computation. Different procedures to extract more efficiently information from the final wave function of these algorithms are studied, including coarse-grained measurements, amplitude amplification and measure of wavelet-transformed wave function. The algorithms are analyzed and numerically tested on a complex quantum system showing different behavior depending on parameters, namely the kicked rotator. The results for the Wigner function show in particular that the use of the quantum wavelet transform gives a polynomial gain over classical computation. For the Husimi distribution, the gain is much larger than for the Wigner function, and is bigger with the help of amplitude amplification and wavelet transforms. We also apply the same set of techniques to the analysis of real images. The results show that the use of the quantum wavelet transform allows to lower dramatically the number of measurements needed, but at the cost of a large loss of information.Comment: Revtex, 13 pages, 16 figure

Atemporal diagrams for quantum circuits

A system of diagrams is introduced that allows the representation of various elements of a quantum circuit, including measurements, in a form which makes no reference to time (hence ``atemporal''). It can be used to relate quantum dynamical properties to those of entangled states (map-state duality), and suggests useful analogies, such as the inverse of an entangled ket. Diagrams clarify the role of channel kets, transition operators, dynamical operators (matrices), and Kraus rank for noisy quantum channels. Positive (semidefinite) operators are represented by diagrams with a symmetry that aids in understanding their connection with completely positive maps. The diagrams are used to analyze standard teleportation and dense coding, and for a careful study of unambiguous (conclusive) teleportation. A simple diagrammatic argument shows that a Kraus rank of 3 is impossible for a one-qubit channel modeled using a one-qubit environment in a mixed state.Comment: Minor changes in references. Latex 32 pages, 13 figures in text using PSTrick

Single-Step Quantum Search Using Problem Structure

The structure of satisfiability problems is used to improve search algorithms for quantum computers and reduce their required coherence times by using only a single coherent evaluation of problem properties. The structure of random k-SAT allows determining the asymptotic average behavior of these algorithms, showing they improve on quantum algorithms, such as amplitude amplification, that ignore detailed problem structure but remain exponential for hard problem instances. Compared to good classical methods, the algorithm performs better, on average, for weakly and highly constrained problems but worse for hard cases. The analytic techniques introduced here also apply to other quantum algorithms, supplementing the limited evaluation possible with classical simulations and showing how quantum computing can use ensemble properties of NP search problems.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures. Revision describes further improvement with multiple steps (section 7). See also http://www.parc.xerox.com/dynamics/www/quantum.htm

Applying Grover's algorithm to AES: quantum resource estimates

We present quantum circuits to implement an exhaustive key search for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and analyze the quantum resources required to carry out such an attack. We consider the overall circuit size, the number of qubits, and the circuit depth as measures for the cost of the presented quantum algorithms. Throughout, we focus on Clifford$+T$ gates as the underlying fault-tolerant logical quantum gate set. In particular, for all three variants of AES (key size 128, 192, and 256 bit) that are standardized in FIPS-PUB 197, we establish precise bounds for the number of qubits and the number of elementary logical quantum gates that are needed to implement Grover's quantum algorithm to extract the key from a small number of AES plaintext-ciphertext pairs.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 5 tables; to appear in: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQCrypto 2016

On The Evolution of Magnetic White Dwarfs

We present the first radiation magnetohydrodynamics simulations of the atmosphere of white dwarf stars. We demonstrate that convective energy transfer is seriously impeded by magnetic fields when the plasma-beta parameter, the thermal to magnetic pressure ratio, becomes smaller than unity. The critical field strength that inhibits convection in the photosphere of white dwarfs is in the range B = 1-50 kG, which is much smaller than the typical 1-1000 MG field strengths observed in magnetic white dwarfs, implying that these objects have radiative atmospheres. We have then employed evolutionary models to study the cooling process of high-field magnetic white dwarfs, where convection is entirely suppressed during the full evolution (B > 10 MG). We find that the inhibition of convection has no effect on cooling rates until the effective temperature (Teff) reaches a value of around 5500 K. In this regime, the standard convective sequences start to deviate from the ones without convection owing to the convective coupling between the outer layers and the degenerate reservoir of thermal energy. Since no magnetic white dwarfs are currently known at the low temperatures where this coupling significantly changes the evolution, effects of magnetism on cooling rates are not expected to be observed. This result contrasts with a recent suggestion that magnetic white dwarfs with Teff < 10,000 K cool significantly slower than non-magnetic degenerates.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Is Quantum Bit Commitment Really Possible?

We show that all proposed quantum bit commitment schemes are insecure because the sender, Alice, can almost always cheat successfully by using an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen type of attack and delaying her measurement until she opens her commitment.Comment: Major revisions to include a more extensive introduction and an example of bit commitment. Overlap with independent work by Mayers acknowledged. More recent works by Mayers, by Lo and Chau and by Lo are also noted. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let