A REVIEW ON QUANTUM COMPUTING
AND QUANTUM COMPUTERS
Ravish B.C, Raghavendra Yadav, Mrs. Merlyn Melita
Computer Science Engineering Department
AIET, Mijar(Manglore,India)
ravish.nfs@gmail.com, raghuyadavs153@gmail.com, merlynmelita@gmail.com
Abstract—Welcome to the dawn of the future. After the evolution of
Quantum Physics, many fields were up for research and
develoment in the realm of quantum researches both in theory and
practical . One such field is Quantum Mechanics and Quantum
Computing where there is space for all that was once believed as
impossible. Ultra high speed, highly unhackable, security, and you
name it. And it could be possible. This paper gives a brief review of
what is going on in the field of quantum computing and quantum
computers. This is to give an idea on quantum tunneling,
superposition, quantum entanglement and their use in quantum
computing and also briefly defines quantum computing algorithms,
quantum gates, and quantum memory.
Keywords— Qubits, Quantum entanglement, Polarization,
Teleportation, Quantum computing, Quantum communication,
Quantum mechanics, Postulates, and Quantum memory.
I. INTRODUCTION
Quantum computing is computing using quantum-mechanical
phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement. A
quantum computer is a device that performs quantum
computing. They are different from binary digital electronic
computers based on transistors. Whereas common digital
computing requires that the data be encoded into binary digits
(bits), each of which is always in one of two definite states (0
or 1), quantum computation uses quantum bits, which can be
in super-positions of states. A quantum Turing machine is a
theoretical model of such a computer, and is also known as the
universal quantum computer. The field of quantum computing
was initiated by the work of Paul Benioff and Yuri Manin in
1980, Richard Feynman in 1982, and David Deutsch in
1985.A quantum computer with spins as quantum bits
Quantum physics is the science of the very small. It explains
the behavior of matter and its interactions with energy on the
scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It has a lot of
phenomena which do not feasible in classical physics like
superposition and entanglement. If it is able to harness the
principles of quantum physics in the field of quantum
computing, better and efficient algorithms can be developed
by utilizing them. Computing field is already in a whole new
level also in nano scale where the behavior of quantas is based
on quantum physics and its principles and the fields computing
and communication are so intertwined that development in one
demands the development in the other.
Regards to great pioneers who proved that computing can
exploit principles of quantum mechanics by representing
bits physically by the concept of Qbits and quantum
tunneling, and various algorithms like Shor’s
algorithm, Google’s booth algorithm etc.
For further more understanding, this article introduces
following contents. The basic postulates of quantum
physics that governs quantum computing and
computers, polarization. And at last we conclude with
the scope and a look out to future through quantum
world of communication and computing.
II. POSTULATES OF QUANTUM
MECHANICS
There are four postulates that rule the world of
quantum communication and computing, which are
the result of experimental observations. They share
their place with axioms in the Euclidean Geometry.
We shall look into the postulates one by one [2].
A. First Postulate (state space)
“The actual state of any closed physical system can be
described by means of a so-called state vector v
having complex coefficients and unit length in a
Hilbert space V, i.e. complex linear vector space
(state space) equipped with an inner product.”[2]
A very simple example of a closed physical system is
two-dimensional Hilbert space. The two-dimensional
vector
where 1,0 and 0,1 stand for the orthonormal basis
vectors of the Hilbert space V and a, b ∈ C, represents
the state of the system. The quantum state vector’s
coordinates are called probability amplitudes as in
describing the location of particles in Schrodinger
wave function, they play the role of amplitudes.
B. Second Postulate (evolution)
“The evolution of any closed physical system in time
can be characterized by means of unitary transforms
depending only on the
starting and finishing time of the evolution.” [2]
.
 C. Third Postulate (measurement)
“Any quantum measurement can be described by means of a set
of measurement operators {Mm}, where m stands for the
possible results of the measurement. The probability of
measuring m if the system is in state v can be calculated as “[2]
And the system after measuring m goes to state
Because classical probability theory requires that
“Measurement operators have to satisfy the following
completeness relation”
D. Fourth postulate (composite system)
“The state space of a composite physical system W can be
determined using the tensor product of the individual systems W
= V ⊗ Y. Furthermore having defined v ∈ V and y ∈ Y then
the joint state of the composite system is w = v ⊗ y.” [2]
Thus these are the four simple postulates that rule the quantum
world of communication and computing. To do the research and
manipulations one might require to dive deep into the
mathematics of each of these. Even if you are not too much into
mathematics it is not difficult to understand the concepts and
principles which are described in the paper.
Let us consider one by one.
III. POLARIZATIONS AND ENTANGLEMENT
Polarization is basically the orientation of oscillations in the
plane perpendicular to the transverse wave’s direction of travel.
Even though in the quantum context, light is treated as a bunch
of particles called photons, they preserve the property of
polarization and obeys the postulates [3]. The following figures
explain the horizontal as well as vertical polarization of light
and the vector representation of polarization.
Fig. 1: Horizontal and vertical polarization of light [1, 9].
Fig. 2: Vector representation of different
photon polarizations
In Fig. 2 and represents the horizontal and vertical
polarization and represents the angular polarization
In classical approach, if we want to send a logic 1 bit,
we may send either vertical or horizontal polarized
light and nothing for logic 0 bit or another option is to
encode vertical polarized light as logic 1 and
horizontal as logic 0 and send it. In both the cases it is
easy to determine the information sent from the
received bit . Now instead if 45 degree polarized light
is sent no one can say whether it is logic 1 or logic 0
as it is equidistant from both the axes. Thus a quantum
measurement device decodes half of it as logic 1 and
remaining as logic 0. This detection is completely
random and is the beauty of quantum mechanics. It
emphasizes the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics.
How does it make sense? A genuine query. How to
know which bit was sent and when? In order to answer
these questions let us take the example of coin tossing
experiment
Let us bring into the picture three old friends of
communication engineers Alice, Bob and Eve. If Alice
wants to transmit information say ‘1’ and ‘0’ to Bob
and they agree on a code that ‘head’ represents ‘1’ and
‘tail’ represents ‘0’. Their transmission was not at all a
problem until when Eve came in between. Eve take
the coin sent by Alice and changes its state randomly
which left Bob in confusion and erroneous reception.
Now Alice and Bob learned quantum mechanics and
decided to exploit its properties. Thus now instead of
just sending the coin, Alice rotated the coin and sent it
to Bob. Eve again took the coin and flipped its state
and passed it to Bob without his knowledge. But now
Bob knows, it’s not the head or tail that represents the
information but the direction of rotation and he easily
decodes clock wise as logic 1 and anticlock wise as
logic 0. Thus by adding no redundant bit, faithful
communication was established between Alice and
Bob even in the presence of Eve. This analogy can
now be extended to real scenario by replacing the coin
by photon and the rotation by polarization. Even
though certain properties are changed, if the polarization is
preserved, successful communication can be achieved.
Entanglement or quantum superposition is yet another beautiful
physical phenomena observed in quantum world when pair or
group of particles interact in such a way that their individual
quantum states cannot be described independently and only a
quantum state can be given to the system as a whole. Particles
can also be generated to have entangled states. When we do
measurements in the entangled particles, it is found to be highly
correlated and it may seem sometimes paradoxical. The
interesting fact is that once entangled, the particles preserves the
quantum states even when they are separated wide apart. This
gives a communication engineer to exploit the property well and
use it to improve security and other aspects of communication.
Let us now bring Alice, Bod and coin again to explain the
scenario. Now Alice instead of one coin tosses two coins and
asks bob to catch both. Bob can obtain any one of the four
possible outcomes as both coins can have head or tail as
outcome. Now Alice sticks a rod to the coins such that both
coins face head upwards and when she tosses the system, both
rotates in the same manner simultaneously. When Bob collects
it, he has only two states either head or tail. Let us elaborate the
scenario a bit more. Alice and Bob are now not near but say
three miles away. Increase the length of the rod to 3 miles.
Alice tossed the first coin here and asked Bob to collect it from
3 miles away. Since both the coins are having the same state
Bob will collect the same information, 3 miles away. Let us
now relate the analogy to quantum communication world. The
two coins represents the entangled system of photons and Alice
the transmitter, Bob the receiver and distance the channel.
Thus polarization and entanglement very useful and interesting
phenomena available in quantum world and can be extended
much more into security based applications like quantum
cryptography, quantum key distribution etc..
IV. APPLICATIONS AND ADVANCEMENTS
A. Quantum teleportation, cryptography and quantum
communication networks
Teleportation involves the transferring of quantum state of a
particle to another particle over a distance. It is based on the
property quantum entanglement which is already discussed
earlier in the paper. Entanglement allows teleportation, the
movement of information directly from one point to another.
The major application of entanglement is in cryptography and
computing which we shall discuss in brief.
Conventional cryptography is based on mathematical problems
and algorithms. So if one finds an efficient way to crack the
algorithm or solve the problem, the information is no longer
secure. Here is where the beauty of entanglement lies. Any
attempt to eavesdrop will alter the state and can be detected
making the communication innately secure without complex
algorithms and procedures .
This pave way for secure communication over
quantum communication networks. Still there were
problems in implementation as storage of quantum
information and use of optical fiber as medium where
not happening together. The wavelengths in which
OFC worked were very much different from the ones
needed for quantum memory storage. Researches and
experiments have made way for the once impossible.
Cleverly designed systems generates entangled photos
such that one can be stored in the memory and other
can travel through the fiber.
Recent researches and advancements have made
free space quantum communication a reality. Almost
200km communication link has been experimentally
verified in various parts of the world using different
quantum techniques. The design of repeaters for
quantum networks is yet another area of research. The
repeaters that are able to distribute quantum
entanglement over kilometers is a challenge even
now.
B. Quantum computing and quantum memories The
field of science which directly uses quantum
mechanical phenomena like superposition and
entanglement to perform operations on data is referred
to as quantum computing. The idea was first
introduced by Yuri Manin in 1980 and Richard
Feynman in 1982 . Even now quantum computing is in
its budding stage and has a long way to go before it
become fullfledged technology in practice. Quantum
computers will be a very efficient replacement of their
classical counterparts as most of the algorithms and
problems like integer factorization can be done in a
much faster way. Not only integer factorization but
many other problems and algorithms can be solved
with a greater pace using quantum computing
techniques.
Practical implementation of quantum computers face a
lot of challenges of which main are.
o scalable physically to increase the number of
qubits;
o qubits can be initialized to arbitrary values;
o quantum gates faster than decoherence time;
o universal gate set;
o qubits can be read easily
A lot of developments occur in the field of quantum
computing and researchers have come up with
different models of quantum computers of which
quantum gate array, one-way quantum computer,
adiabatic quantum computer, topological quantum
computer are a few. Researchers have found that
quantum computers based on Von Newman
architecture is possible also break through is made in
quantum computing with superconducting integrated
circuits.
Quantum memories play a great role in quantum computing and
communication. The storage of qubits for computing, longer
memory times, higher efficiency, bandwidth requirements are a
few challenges in building quantum memories. Solid state
quantum memories with rare earth ion doped crystals have been
manufactured with a bandwidth of few hundred Mega-Hertz.
The commercial deployment and take up quantum over classical
is just a matter of time .
[9] Sándor Imre, Quantum Communications: Explained for
communication Engineers, IEEE Communications Magazine,
August 2013.
[10] Laszlo Bacsardi, On the way to quantum based satellite
communications, IEEE Communications Magazine, August
2013.
[11] Quantum communicatons leap out of the lab, Nature Physics
24 April 2014 vol 508.

C. Quantum based satellite communication
A quantum channel is a communication channel that can
transmit both quantum and classical information. Fig. 3 shows a
transmission of classical information by sender Alice to receiver
Bob via satellite quantum channel.
[12] Crystal quantum memories for quantum communication,
Science Daily, 14 July 2014
[13] Armando N. Pinto, Nuno A. Silva, Álvaro J. Almeida, and
Nelson J. Muga, Using Quantum Technologies to Improve
Fiber Optic
Communication Systems, IEEE Communication Magazine
August 2013

CONCLUSION [14]
http://physics.about.com/od/quantumphysics/f/quantumcomp.htm

Quantum mechanics have begun to play an important role in the

field of computing and communication. We have reviewed the
basic postulates of quantum mechanics, polarization,
entanglement and various applications in the field. It not just
opens a wide area for research and development but also
promises a secure efficient way to communicate and compute
data. The field opens up a door to many areas of expertise like
memory manufacturing, algorithm development, router
development, networking, space communication and what not.
In the coming few years, quantum computing and
communication is going to take over and relace its classical
counter parts in the field of communication and computing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to appreciate the reviewers for their
valued observations and propositions to advance the quality of
the paper.
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