Principles and applications of Quantum Computing

Mehemmed Abbasli
Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction

Introduction
The idea of a quantum computer first started when the American physicist Paul Benioff proposed
a quantum model of Turing machine, which followed by theoretical physicist Richard Feynman
and mathematician Yuri Manin’s suggestion stating that quantum computer can potentially
simulate things classical computers can’t.
The main difference between classical and quantum computers is that quantum computer can
operate multiple operations at the same time while classical computer has to go through each
operation one by one. Let’s elaborate on that with a simple example:
Imagine there are 3 people (Jack, Bob and Jane) and 2 taxis. Let’s assume:
 Jack and Bob are friends
 Jack and Jane are enemies
 Bob and Jane are enemies
Our mission here is to divide these 3 people into the two taxis while maximizing the friends that
share the same car and minimizing the enemies that share the same car.
If we were to solve this in a classical computer:
We will have to list all possible combinations and find the one with the best score.
0|0|0
0|0|1
0|1|0
0|1|1
1|0|0
1|0|1
1|1|0
1|1|1
So, the way we are going to score each configuration is:
Score = number of friend pairs sharing the same car - number of enemy pairs sharing the same
car
Example:
The score of the configuration 1 | 0 | 1. There are 0 friend pairs and 1 enemy pair sharing the
same car. Score is 0 – 1 = -1
Let’s list the scores for each configuration:
0 | 0 | 0 | -1
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 best solution 1
0 | 1 | 0 | -1
0 | 1 | 1 | -1
1 | 0 | 0 | -1
1 | 0 | 1 | -1
1 | 1 | 0 | 1 best solution 2
1 | 1 | 1 | -1

With 3 people the number of possible configurations is 8, for 4 people it would be 16 etc.
The number of configurations growth exponentially as the number of people increase, meaning
to solve the problem with 100 people we would need to run 2^100 operations, which equals to
1000000000000000000000000000000(a lot) operations. It wouldn’t be possible to solve this
problem with a classical computer.
We used 3 bits to represent one of the configurations in a classical computer. But quantum
computer uses qubits (quantum bits). With 3 qubits a we can represent all 8 possible
configurations at the same time via quantum superposition (we will get into that later). So, the
number of variables doesn’t affect the performance of the quantum computer. The main
advantage of quantum computer is not the speed it is able to compute, it is the number of
variables it can take and compute all at the same time. Nowadays quantum computers operate at
most 100Mhz frequency, which is significantly slower than modern classical computer chips.
Will quantum computers replace the classical computers? Probably not. At least not anytime
soon. Quantum computers are machines that will be used for very specific tasks that require a lot
of data computation. Watching online video on classical computer makes more sense. It would
be like developing a high-end GPU to play Tetris on it.
How does a quantum computer work?
Quantum computers are computing machines that use certain quantum physics phenomenons to
their advantage to compute and solve very complex and variable rich problems. The qubits are
used instead of transistors that are used in classical computers. These qubits can be the outer
most electron of an atom, nuclei of an atom, ion etc. Every subatomic particle like electron or
proton has a property called spin. We can imagine it as the direction which the particle is
pointing to. The spin is determined by the magnetic fields that the particle is affected by. The
spin of a qubit can be up or down. At its lowest energy the particle points down, so called spin
down. To make spin up we have to give it some energy. Imagine it as the compass that is
affected by the magnetic field of the Earth. It always points to the North. But you can apply a
force to the needle by your finger to make it point South. The qubit has spin down and spin up
state, much like a classical bit having the value 0 or 1. If we take two qubits, we have four
possible states of these qubits. 00 01 10 11. But the thing is with the quantum particles they can
be at the both states at once. This is called superposition. These two qubits contain the 4
possible states at the same time, where two classical bits can only contain 2. As the number of
qubits increase, the amount of information they can contain increases exponentially. So, if we
had a quantum computer with 400 perfectly entangled qubits, it would be like having 2^400
classical bits, which is more than the number of particles that there are in universe.
But, how do we make a computer out of this?
One of the most popular approaches is to use the outer most electron of the Phosphorus atom. As
mentioned above the qubit will be spin down at its lowest energy. This approach uses
superconducting magnets to differentiate when the electron is spin up or spin down. The electron
will line up with the magnetic field pointing down at its lowest energy state. The energy needed
to put the electron to the spin up state is not that much. So, at room temperature the electron
would have enough thermal energy to jump from spin down to spin up and back very frequently.
To prevent this, we have to cool the entire machine to near absolute zero. Now we have the
electron at spin down state aligned with the magnetic field. To put it to spin up state we hit the
electron with pulse of microwaves at a specific frequency. The frequency that the electron will
respond to is determined by the magnetic field around it. Then how do we read the information
that the electron is at spin up state when we hit it with this pulse of microwaves. The phosphorus
atom that holds the electron is embedded next to a special transistor. When the electron is at the
spin up state it has enough energy to leave the atom and transfer to the transistor which creates
electrical current across the transistor that can be read by special electronics.
Source: Screenshot from [6]

But we can use the nuclei of the atom as a qubit too. Like the electron it also has a spin down or
spin up state, but it’s much lower than the spin of the electron. So, to make it spin up we have to
hit it with longer pulse and wavelength microwave. The advantage this gives us is the nuclei is
strongly isolated from outer world it lives for longer amount of time. But how do we measure the
spin of this nuclei. We use its electron. The electron is not just affected by the external magnetic
field of superconducting magnet, it’s also affected by the magnetic field of nuclei. Because the
frequency which the electron would respond to is dependent on the magnetic field around it. The
magnetic field that is produced by nuclei is different at different spins. So, electron has two
different frequencies that it can respond to depending on the spin of nuclei.
Entanglement
The entanglement happens when to electrons get closer so they interact via their magnetic fields.
One electrons spin is always the opposite of the electron it’s entangled with. The direction of the
electrons magnetic field travels from north around and back to the south pole of electron. Field
points down where it meets and interacts with the other electron making it point up.

Source: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/79504/why-magnetic-field-lines-and-force-are-not-
orthogonal-with-magnets
This phenomenon constitutes a legitimate digital code for a quantum computer. So, with two
qubits, we have the combinations:
Coefficients | Combinations
A | up up
B | down down
C | up down
D | down up
To describe these two qubits, we need these 4 coefficients (A, B, C, D). Where in classical bits 2
bits could only be described by 2 numbers. As the number of bits increase the advantage of
quantum computer increases exponentially.
Information needed to describe classical bits is n=number of bits
Information needed to describe qubits is 2^n
Applications of quantum computing
One of the most important applications is in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This
area has improved so fast, but the amount of processing power needed to process, clean and
classify the data has become enormous. Because these algorithms require a lot of data to be
trained to a decent level. Because quantum computer can process a lot of data at the same time
this will help to train these models significantly faster.
The most promising one is Chemistry. The number of quantum states even in a really small
molecule is huge. Using quantum computers, we can analyze, design and modify molecules. I
think drug design is the one that will be affected the most. Because this is usually trial and error
type of process and takes a lot of time. With the help of quantum computers, we can process and
analyze every possible configuration of elements in a molecule saving tons of time. We can
improve fertilizers, decrease carbon footprint for certain processes, and many more.
Cryptography will fundamentally change for sure. Because with advanced enough quantum
computer you can crack any encryption algorithm. But no need to worry. First, we are very far
away from that point, because to crack a modern encryption algorithm, we would need at least
around 3000 qubits. And this is the best-case scenario. Because of error correction problem we
will need a lot more than that. Around 200 million qubits. But even if it was possible now, we
already have new quantum encryption algorithms being developed.

Conclusion
Quantum computers are in a superposition of being far and also not that far away from being
real. Depends on the perspective of the observer. They will make our lives better by improving
healthcare, technology, ecology, science. But as all other innovations before that promised
power, this technology will probably get to wrong hands too. What we need is passionate,
futuristic, innovative people with a good will of making the world a better place

References
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing
2. https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-is-a-quantum-computer-explained-with-a-
simple-example-b8f602035365/
3. https://analyticsindiamag.com/top-applications-of-quantum-computing-everyone-should-
know-about/
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_IaVepNDT4&ab_channel=Veritasium
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNzzGgr2mhk&ab_channel=Veritasium
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=jDW9bWSepB0&t=5586s&ab_channel=EEVdiscover
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7susESgnDv8&t=5s&ab_channel=SibosTV