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UCS525

ASSIGNMENT – 1

REPORT ON QUANTUM COMPUTING

Submitted By:

AKASH (101703634)

Submitted to:

Dr. Shalini Batra

Computer Science Department, Summer-Semester 2020


ABSTRACT

Classical computers have the most basic structure as ‘bits’ that exist as either 0 or 1.
Quantum computers on the other hand aren't limited to only those two states, they can
store information as quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in superposition, that is to
say that qubits can be 0 and 1 at the same time. Qubits are used to represent atoms,
photons or electrons and their respective control devices that work together to perform as
computer memory and a computer processor. As a quantum computer can contain these
multiple states at the same time in form of qubits, it has the potential to be thousands of
times more efficient and powerful than the most powerful supercomputers known to
mankind. A processor that has the capability to use registers of qubits will be able to
perform calculations using all possible input values simultaneously. This superposition
leads to a phenomenon known as quantum parallelism, and this is the leading motivation
behind the research being carried out in the field of quantum computing.
Quantum computing can basically be described as the use of quantum phenomena such as
superposition and entanglement to perform various computations. Computers that have
the ability to perform quantum computations are called quantum computers. Quantum
computers are said to be capable of solving certain computational problems, which the
classical computers could not solve in a feasible time. Study of quantum computing and
its algorithms is a subfield of quantum information science.
INTRODUCTION

The concept of Quantum computing came into form when a quantum mechanical model
of the Turing machine was proposed by physicist Paul Benioff, in the early 1980s.
Richard Feynman in 1982 suggested the idea of a ‘quantum computer’ as a computer that
uses the effects of quantum mechanics to its advantage. Initially the notion of quantum
computer was primarily of theoretical interest only. But the idea came into limelight
when, in 1994, Peter Shor(Bell Laboratories) invented an algorithm for factoring large
integers on quantum computer. A quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm would
have the potential to decrypt current cryptography techniques in a very short amount of
time. Despite the fact that researchers across the globe are competing to be the first to
create a practical quantum computer, most people believe that a practical fault-tolerant
quantum computer is still a very distant dream. Investment into research for quantum
computing has increased in the recent years, in both the public and private sector. On 23
October 2019, Google AI, in partnership with the NASA, claimed to have performed a
quantum computation that is infeasible on any classical computer.

There are several models of quantum computing, including the quantum circuit model,
quantum Turing machine, adiabatic quantum computer, one-way quantum computer, and
various quantum cellular automata. The most widely used model is the quantum circuit.
Quantum circuits are based on the quantum bit, or "qubit", which is somewhat analogous
to the bit in classical computation. Qubits can be in a 1 or 0 quantum state, or they can be
in a superposition of the 1 and 0 states.

Any computational problem that can be solved by a classical computer can also, in
principle, be solved by a quantum computer. Conversely, quantum computers obey the
Church–Turing thesis; that is, any computational problem that can be solved by a
quantum computer can also be solved by a classical computer. While this means that
quantum computers provide no additional advantages over classical computers in terms
of computability, they do in theory enable the design of algorithms for certain problems
that have significantly lower time complexities than known classical algorithms. Notably,
quantum computers are believed to be able to quickly solve certain problems that no
classical computer could solve in any feasible amount of time—a feat known as
"quantum supremacy."
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS

Quantum computers could lead to the development of new breakthroughs in science,


medications to save lives, machine learning methods to diagnose illnesses sooner,
materials to make more efficient devices and structures, financial strategies to live well in
retirement, and algorithms to quickly direct resources such as ambulances.

Cryptography
Integer factorization, which underpins the security of public key cryptographic systems,
is believed to be computationally infeasible with an ordinary computer for large integers
if they are the product of few prime numbers (e.g., products of two 300-digit primes). By
comparison, a quantum computer could efficiently solve this problem using Shor's
algorithm to find its factors. This ability would allow a quantum computer to break many
of the cryptographic systems in use today, in the sense that there would be a polynomial
time (in the number of digits of the integer) algorithm for solving the problem. In
particular, most of the popular public key ciphers are based on the difficulty of factoring
integers or the discrete logarithm problem, both of which can be solved by Shor's
algorithm. In particular, the RSA, Diffie–Hellman, and elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman
algorithms could be broken. These are used to protect secure Web pages, encrypted
email, and many other types of data. Breaking these would have significant ramifications
for electronic privacy and security.

However, other cryptographic algorithms do not appear to be broken by those algorithms.


Some public-key algorithms are based on problems other than the integer factorization
and discrete logarithm problems to which Shor's algorithm applies, like the McEliece
cryptosystem based on a problem in coding theory. Lattice-based cryptosystems are also
not known to be broken by quantum computers, and finding a polynomial time algorithm
for solving the dihedral hidden subgroup problem, which would break many lattice based
cryptosystems, is a well-studied open problem. It has been proven that applying Grover's
algorithm to break a symmetric (secret key) algorithm by brute force requires time equal
to roughly 2n/2 invocations of the underlying cryptographic algorithm, compared with
roughly 2n in the classical case, meaning that symmetric key lengths are effectively
halved: AES-256 would have the same security against an attack using Grover's
algorithm that AES-128 has against classical brute-force search.

Quantum cryptography could potentially fulfill some of the functions of public key
cryptography. Quantum-based cryptographic systems could, therefore, be more secure
than traditional systems against quantum hacking.
Quantum search
Besides factorization and discrete logarithms, quantum algorithms offering a more than
polynomial speedup over the best known classical algorithm have been found for several
problems,[20] including the simulation of quantum physical processes from chemistry
and solid state physics, the approximation of Jones polynomials, and solving Pell's
equation. No mathematical proof has been found that shows that an equally fast classical
algorithm cannot be discovered, although this is considered unlikely. However, quantum
computers offer polynomial speedup for some problems. The most well-known example
of this is quantum database search, which can be solved by Grover's algorithm using
quadratically fewer queries to the database than that are required by classical algorithms.
In this case, the advantage is not only provable but also optimal, it has been shown that
Grover's algorithm gives the maximal possible probability of finding the desired element
for any number of oracle lookups. Several other examples of provable quantum speedups
for query problems have subsequently been discovered, such as for finding collisions in
two-to-one functions and evaluating NAND trees.

Problems that can be addressed with Grover's algorithm have the following properties:

 There is no searchable structure in the collection of possible answers,


 The number of possible answers to check is the same as the number of inputs to
the algorithm, and
 There exists a boolean function which evaluates each input and determines
whether it is the correct answer
For problems with all these properties, the running time of Grover's algorithm on a
quantum computer will scale as the square root of the number of inputs (or elements in
the database), as opposed to the linear scaling of classical algorithms. A general class of
problems to which Grover's algorithm can be applied is Boolean satisfiability problem. In
this instance, the database through which the algorithm is iterating is that of all possible
answers. An example (and possible) application of this is a password cracker that
attempts to guess the password or secret key for an encrypted file or system. Symmetric
ciphers such as Triple DES and AES are particularly vulnerable to this kind of attack.
This application of quantum computing is a major interest of government agencies.

Quantum simulation
Since chemistry and nanotechnology rely on understanding quantum systems, and such
systems are impossible to simulate in an efficient manner classically, many believe
quantum simulation will be one of the most important applications of quantum
computing.[24] Quantum simulation could also be used to simulate the behavior of atoms
and particles at unusual conditions such as the reactions inside a collider.
Quantum annealing and adiabatic optimization
Quantum annealing or Adiabatic quantum computation relies on the adiabatic theorem to
undertake calculations. A system is placed in the ground state for a simple Hamiltonian,
which is slowly evolved to a more complicated Hamiltonian whose ground state
represents the solution to the problem in question. The adiabatic theorem states that if the
evolution is slow enough the system will stay in its ground state at all times through the
process.

Solving linear equations


The Quantum algorithm for linear systems of equations, or "HHL Algorithm", named
after its discoverers Harrow, Hassidim, and Lloyd, is expected to provide speedup over
classical counterparts.

Quantum supremacy

John Preskill has introduced the term quantum supremacy to refer to the hypothetical
speedup advantage that a quantum computer would have over a classical computer in a
certain field. Google announced in 2017 that it expected to achieve quantum supremacy
by the end of the year though that did not happen. IBM said in 2018 that the best classical
computers will be beaten on some practical task within about five years and views the
quantum supremacy test only as a potential future benchmark. Although skeptics doubt
that quantum supremacy will ever be achieved, in October 2019, a Sycamore processor
created in conjunction with Google AI Quantum was said to have achieved quantum
supremacy, with calculations more than 3,000,000 times as fast as those of the world's
fastest computer. While Bill Unruh and a few others doubt the practicality of quantum
computers in a paper published back in 1994.
QUANTUM COMPUTING MODELS

There exists quite a few quantum computing models, which can be distinguished by the
basic elements by which the computation is decomposed. The four important models of
quantum computing are:

 Quantum gate array (computation is decomposed into sequence of few-qubit


quantum gates)

 One-way quantum computer (computation is decomposed into sequence of one-


qubit measurements and applied to a highly entangled starting state or to a cluster
state)

 Adiabatic quantum computer, which is based on quantum annealing (computation


is decomposed in a slow and continuous transformation of an initial Hamiltonian
into a final Hamiltonian, whose ground states contains the required answer)

 Topological quantum computer (computation is decomposed in the form of the


braiding of anyons in a Two Dimensional lattice)

The Quantum Turing machine is theoretically significant but the physical implementation
of the model is not quite possible. All four major models given above of quantum
computation have been shown to be similar and each one of them can simulate the other
with no more than polynomial overhead.
OBSTACLES

There are a number of technical challenges in building a large-scale quantum computer.


Physicist David DiVincenzo has listed the following requirements for a practical
quantum computer:

 Scalable physically to increase the number of qubits


 Qubits that can be initialized to arbitrary values
 Quantum gates that are faster than decoherence time
 Universal gate set
 Qubits that can be read easily
Sourcing parts for quantum computers is also very difficult. Many quantum computers,
like those constructed by Google and IBM, need Helium-3, a nuclear research byproduct,
and special superconducting cables that are only made by the Japanese company Coax
Co.
The control of multi qubit systems requires the generation and coordination of large
number electrical signals with tight and deterministic timing resolution. This had led to
the development of quantum controllers which enable interfacing the qubit. Scaling these
systems to support a growing number of qubits is an additional challenge in the scaling of
quantum computers.

Quantum decoherence
One of the greatest challenges involved with constructing quantum computers is
controlling or removing quantum decoherence. This usually means isolating the system
from its environment as interactions with the external world cause the system to
decohere. However, other sources of decoherence also exist. Examples include the
quantum gates, and the lattice vibrations and background thermonuclear spin of the
physical system used to implement the qubits. Decoherence is irreversible, as it is
effectively non-unitary, and is usually something that should be highly controlled, if not
avoided. Decoherence times for candidate systems in particular, the transverse relaxation
time T2 (for NMR and MRI technology, also called the dephasing time), typically range
between nanoseconds and seconds at low temperature. Currently, some quantum
computers require their qubits to be cooled to 20 millikelvins in order to prevent
significant decoherence. A 2020 study argues that ionizing radiation such as cosmic rays
can nevertheless cause certain systems to decohere within millisections.[
As a result, time-consuming tasks may render some quantum algorithms inoperable, as
maintaining the state of qubits for a long enough duration will eventually corrupt the
superpositions.

These issues are more difficult for optical approaches as the timescales are orders of
magnitude shorter and an often-cited approach to overcoming them is optical pulse
shaping. Error rates are typically proportional to the ratio of operating time to
decoherence time, hence any operation must be completed much more quickly than the
decoherence time.

As described in the Quantum threshold theorem, if the error rate is small enough, it is
thought to be possible to use quantum error correction to suppress errors and
decoherence. This allows the total calculation time to be longer than the decoherence
time if the error correction scheme can correct errors faster than decoherence introduces
them. An often cited figure for the required error rate in each gate for fault-tolerant
computation is 10−3, assuming the noise is depolarizing.

Meeting this scalability condition is possible for a wide range of systems. However, the
use of error correction brings with it the cost of a greatly increased number of required
qubits. The number required to factor integers using Shor's algorithm is still polynomial,
and thought to be between L and L2, where L is the number of qubits in the number to be
factored; error correction algorithms would inflate this figure by an additional factor of L.
For a 1000-bit number, this implies a need for about 104 bits without error correction.
With error correction, the figure would rise to about 107 bits. Computation time is about
L2 or about 107 steps and at 1 MHz, about 10 seconds.

A very different approach to the stability-decoherence problem is to create a topological


quantum computer with anyons, quasi-particles used as threads and relying on braid
theory to form stable logic gates.

Error Correction
Error correction is rather self-explanatory, but what errors need correction? The answer is
primarily those errors that arise as a direct result of decoherence, or the tendency of a
quantumcomputer to decay from a given quantum state into an incoherent state as it
interacts, or entangles, with the state of the environment. These interactions between the
environment and qubits are unavoidable, and induce the breakdown of information stored
in the quantum computer, and thus errors in computation. Before any quantum computer
will be capable of solving hard problems, research must devise a way to maintain
decoherence and other potential sources of error at an acceptable level.
FUTURE OUTLOOK

At present, quantum computers and quantum information technology remains in its


pioneering stage. At this very moment obstacles are being surmounted that will provide
the knowledge needed to thrust quantum computers up to their rightful position as the
fastest computational machines in existence. Error correction has made promising
progress to date, nearing a point now where we may have the tools required to build a
computer robust enough to adequately withstand the effects of decoherence. Quantum
hardware, on the other hand, remains an emerging field, but the work done thus far
suggests that it will only be a matter time before we have devices large enough to test
Shor's and other quantum algorithms. Thereby, quantum computers will emerge as the
superior computational devices at the very least, and perhaps one day make today's
modern computer obsolete. Quantum computation has its origins in highly specialized
fields of theoretical physics, but its future undoubtedly lies in the profound effect it will
have on the lives of all mankind.
CONCLUSION

Experimental and theoretical research in quantum computation is accelerating world-


wide. New technologies for realizing quantum computers are being proposed, and new
types of quantum computation with various advantages over classical computation are
continually being discovered and analysed; and we believe some of them will bear
technological fruit. From a fundamental standpoint, however, it does not matter how
useful quantum computation turns out to be, nor does it matter whether we build the first
quantum computer tomorrow, next year or centuries from now. The quantum theory of
computation must in any case be an integral part of the world view of anyone who seeks
a fundamental understanding of the quantum theory and the processing of information.

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