Quantum Computing

By Eeshani Majumder

01-10-2021

Quantum - the group of packets of energy that are equivalent in proportion to the recurrence
of the radiation it typifies, is no longer trapped inside high school science books or nuclear
energy systems. Technical evolution has enabled computation that can harness the collective
properties of various quantum states, to perform vast calculations and substantial activities.

Thus, the rise of quantum computing brings in a much higher potential and capacity to
process exponentially more data instead of just 1s or 0s, as carried out in classical computers.
The expansion of quantum computing is predicted to shift closer to the pharmaceutical
industry, information protection services, space exploration, and endless more possibilities.

 Beginning of Quantum Computing :

American physicist Paul Benioff was the first to propose a quantum mechanical model for the
Turing machine in 1980. His research indicated the theoretical possibility of quantum
computers that did not dissipate energy, that were reversible in nature, and could operate
under the laws of quantum mechanics following the Schrodinger equation. His fellow
American physicist Richard Feynman and Russian mathematician Yuri Manin emphasized on
the fact that a quantum computer had the potential to simulate things that a classical computer
could not do. Peter Shor took the idea forward in 1994, and developed a quantum algorithm,
known as the Shor’s algorithm, for factoring integers with the power to unravel RSA
encrypted communication.

Though its development slowed down after a significant start, quantum computing has
regained its prominence since 2016, when IBM launched the IBM Quantum Experience, the
first ever quantum processor on the cloud that one could experiment with. On October 23,
2019, Google AI, in cooperation with NASA, claimed to have carried out a quantum
calculation in seconds, that would have taken even the most supreme supercomputers
thousands of years to calculate. It has been demarcated as the Quantum Supremacy of the
time.
 Determinants in Quantum Computing :

Classical computers are known to perform logical operations using the unique position of a
physical state. Their operations are basically binary in nature, i.e. based on one of two
positions using bits, namely 0 and 1. Whereas, in quantum computing, actions use the
quantum state of an object to create what is named as the qubit. A qubit is the basic unit of
information in quantum computing. While bits in classical computers can hold either 1 or 0,
qubits are capable in holding a superposition of numerous states together. This is a necessary
attribute for quantum computers to harness phenomena like superposition, interference, and
entanglement, and apply it to calculations.

For instance, when we flip a coin, we get either heads or tails as the outcome. But, if we were
able to look at both the faces of the coin at the same time and every other intermediate state,
we’d say the coin is in superposition. Similarly, quantum particles keep on fluctuating
between all possible states under superposition.

Entanglement is the capacity of quantum debris to correlate their dimension outcomes with
every other. When qubits are entangled, they shape a singular system and impact each other.
Measurements from one qubit can be utilized to obtain inference about the others. Therefore,
by including and entangling extra qubits in the system, quantum computing can carry out
exponentially extra info and resolve extra complex problems.

On the other hand, quantum interference is the intrinsic conduct of a qubit, because of
superposition, to steer the possibility of it collapsing one manner or another. Quantum
computer systems are constructed in a way that lessens interference in order to ensure we
obtain maximum correct results.
 Working Mechanism:

A quantum computer consists of three main divisions – the storage consisting of qubits, the
technique for transmitting signals to the qubits, and a classical computer to instruct and
execute programs. For some methods of qubit storage, the unit that houses the qubits is kept
at a temperature just above absolute zero to maximize their coherence and reduce
interference. Other types of qubit housing use a vacuum chamber to help minimize vibrations
and stabilize the qubits. Signals can be sent to the qubits using a variety of methods,
including microwaves, laser, and voltage.

The current version of quantum computation is based on a network of quantum logic gates.
This version can be summarised as the linear-algebraic generalization of a classical circuit.
We all know that for n bits of info, we have 2 n possible states, and the vector that represents
all these states is known as the probability vector. In quantum mechanics, probability vectors
may be generalized to density operators. The quantum state vector formalism is generally
brought first due to the fact it's conceptually simpler, and due to the fact it could be used as
opposed to the density matrix formalism for natural states, wherein the complete quantum
machine is known.

We begin by considering a simple memory consisting of only one bit. This memory may be
found in one of two states: the zero state or the one state. We may represent the state of this
memory using Dirac notation so that

A quantum memory may then be found in any quantum superposition | ψ ⟩ of the two
classical states |0⟩ and |1⟩:

In general, the coefficients α and β are complex numbers. In this scenario, one qubit of
information is said to be encoded into the quantum memory. The state | ψ ⟩ is not itself a
probability vector but can be connected with a probability vector via a measurement
operation. If the quantum memory is measured to determine whether the state is |0⟩ or |
1⟩ (this is known as a computational basis measurement), the zero state would be observed
with probability |α2| and the one state with probability |β2| . The numbers α and β are
called quantum amplitudes.
The state of this one-qubit quantum memory can be manipulated by applying quantum logic
gates, analogous to how classical memory can be manipulated with classical logic gates. One
important gate for both classical and quantum computation is the NOT gate, which can be
represented by a matrix

Mathematically, the application of such a logic gate to a quantum state vector is modelled
with matrix multiplication. Thus X|0⟩ = |1⟩ and X|1⟩ = |0⟩.
The mathematics of single qubit gates can be extended to operate on multi-qubit quantum
memories in two important ways. One way is simply to select a qubit and apply that gate to
the target qubit whilst leaving the remainder of the memory unaffected. Another way is to
apply the gate to its target only if another part of the memory is in a desired state. These two
choices can be illustrated using another example. The possible states of a two-qubit quantum
memory are

The CNOT gate can then be represented using the following matrix:

As a mathematical consequence of this definition, CNOT |00⟩= |00⟩, CNOT |01⟩= |01⟩,
CNOT |10⟩= |11⟩, CNOT |11⟩= |10⟩, and . In other words, the CNOT applies a NOT gate (X
from before) to the second qubit if and only if the first qubit is in the state |1⟩. If the first qubit
is |0⟩, nothing is done to either qubit.

The other attributes of the quantum circuit are listed below:

1. Superfluids – These are used to chill the superconductors in the system, about a
hundredth of a degree Celsius above absolute zero.

2. Semiconductors – When electrons pass through superconductors, they pair up into

Cooper pairs which leads to quantum tunnelling into the Josephson junction (a quantum
mechanical device which is made of two superconducting electrodes separated by a
barrier).
3. Control – By firing photons on the qubit, we are able to manipulate its conduct and
capture it to hold, change, and examine out information. Therefore, it is the
superconducting bit.

4. Superposition – A qubit isn’t very useful on its own. However, by creating and
connecting these qubits through superposition can create vast computational spaces. We
can then represent complex problems in this space using programmable gates.

5. Entanglement – Quantum entanglement permits qubits, which behave randomly, to be

flawlessly correlated with every other. Using quantum algorithms that make out most of
the quantum entanglement, unique, complicated troubles can be solved effectively rather
than on classical computers.

 Application Areas:

A quantum computer can't do everything faster than a classical computer, but there are a few
areas where quantum computers have the potential to make a big impact.

1. Quantum Simulation – Quantum computers work exceptionally well for modelling

other quantum systems because they use quantum phenomena in their computation. This
means that they can handle the complexity and ambiguity of systems that would overload
classical computers. Examples of quantum systems that we can model include
photosynthesis, superconductivity, and complex molecular formations.

2. Cryptography – Classical cryptography - such as the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA)

algorithm that’s widely used to secure data transmission—relies on the intractability of
problems such as integer factorization or discrete logarithms. Many of these problems can
be solved more efficiently using quantum computers.

3. Quantum Machine Learning – Machine learning on classical computers is

revolutionizing the world of science and business. However, training machine learning
models comes with a high computational cost, and that has hindered the scope and
development of the field. To speed up progress in this area, we're exploring ways to
devise and implement quantum software that enables faster machine learning.

4. Optimization – Optimization is the process of finding the best solution to a problem

given its desired outcome and constraints. In science and industry, critical decisions are
made based on factors such as cost, quality, and production time—all of which can be
optimized. By running quantum-inspired optimization algorithms on classical computers,
we can find solutions that were previously impossible. This helps us find better ways to
manage complex systems such as traffic flows, airplane gate assignments, package
deliveries, and energy storage.
5. Search – A quantum algorithm developed in 1996 dramatically sped up the solution to
unstructured data searches, running the search in fewer steps than any classical algorithm
could.

6. Computer-aided drug design and generative chemistry – Deep generative chemistry

models emerge as powerful tools to expedite drug discovery. However, the immense size
and complexity of the structural space of all possible drug-like molecules pose significant
obstacles, which could be overcome in the future by quantum computers.

Quantum computers are naturally good for solving complex quantum many-body
problems and thus may be instrumental in applications involving quantum chemistry.
Therefore, one can expect that quantum-enhanced generative models including quantum
GANs may eventually be developed into ultimate generative chemistry algorithms.
Hybrid architectures combining quantum computers with deep classical networks, such as
Quantum Variational Autoencoders, can already be trained on commercially available
annealers and used to generate novel drug-like molecular structures.

7. Computational Biology – In the field of computational biology, computing has played a

big role in solving many biological problems. One of the well-known examples would be
in computational genomics and how computing has drastically reduced the time to
sequence a human genome. Given how computational biology is using generic data
modelling and storage, its applications to computational biology are expected to arise as
well.

The most notable development of the decade has been the Quantum Supremacy. In October
2019, a Sycamore processor created in conjunction with Google AI Quantum was reported to
have achieved quantum supremacy, with calculations more than 3,000,000 times as fast as
those of Summit, generally considered the world's fastest computer.

In December 2020, a group at USTC implemented a type of Boson sampling on 76 photons

with a photonic quantum computer Jiuzhang to demonstrate quantum supremacy. The authors
claim that a classical contemporary supercomputer would require a computational time of
600 million years to generate the number of samples their quantum processor can generate in
20 seconds.

Quantum algorithms can now be coded in python using high level libraries, which has been
extremely beneficial in drawing organizations to carry out research, experimentation and
exploration in the field.
 Conclusion:

“A classical computation is like a solo voice – one line of pure tones succeeding each other.
A quantum computation is like a symphony – many lines of tones interfering with one
another” – as rightly said by Seth Lloyd, quantum computation is a distinctively new way of
understanding and harnessing natural power. In fact, quantum computing is the first
technology that would allow useful tasks to be performed in collaboration with parallel
universes. And who knows, we discover our own multiverse of madness?