Quantum teleportation

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Quantum teleportation is a process by which quantum information (e.g. the exact state of an atom or photon) can be transmitted (exactly, in principle) from one location to another, with the help of classical communication and previously shared quantum entanglement between the sending and receiving location. Because it depends on classical communication, which can proceed no faster than the speed of light, it cannot be used for superluminal transport or communication of classical bits. It also cannot be used to make copies of a system, as this violates the no-cloning theorem. Although the name is inspired by the teleportation commonly used in fiction, fiction far outpaces current technology: although single atoms have been teleported,[1][2][3] molecules or anything larger, such as living things, have not. One may think of teleportation as either a kind of transportation, or as a kind of communication; it provides a way of transporting a qubit from one location to another, without having to actually move a physical particle along with it. The seminal paper first expounding the idea was published by C. H. Bennett, G. Brassard, C. Crpeau, R. Jozsa, A. Peres and W. K. Wootters in 1993.[4]Since then, quantum teleportation has been realized in various physical systems. Presently, the record distance for quantum teleportation is 143 km (89 mi) with photons,[5] and 21m with material systems.[6] On September 11, 2013, the "Furusawa group at the University of Tokyo has succeeded in demonstrating complete quantum teleportation of photonic quantum bits by a hybrid technique for the first time worldwide." [7]
Contents
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1 Non-technical summary 2 Protocol 3 Experimental results and records 4 Formal presentation

4.1 Remarks

5 As a quantum gate 6 Entanglement swapping 7 N-state particles 8 Logic gate teleportation

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8.1 General description 8.2 Further details

9 See also

10 References 11 External links

Non-technical summary[edit]
It is known, from axiomatizations of quantum mechanics (such as categorical quantum mechanics), that the universe is fundamentally composed of two things: bits and qubits.[8][9] Bits are units of information, and are commonly represented using zero or one, true or false. These bits are sometimes called "classical" bits, to distinguish them from quantum bits, or qubits. Qubits also encode a type of information, called quantum information, which differs sharply from "classical" information. For example, a qubit cannot be used to encode a classical bit (this is the content of the no-communication theorem). Conversely, classical bits cannot be used to encode qubits: the two are quite distinct, and not inter-convertible. Qubits differ from classical bits in dramatic ways: they cannot be copied (the no-cloning theorem) and they cannot be destroyed (the no-deleting theorem). Quantum teleportation provides a mechanicsm of moving a qubit from one location to another, without having to physically transport the underlying particle that a qubit is normally attached to. This is important, as heretofore, the only way of moving qubits was to move the actual physical particles that qubits are attached to (viz. by horse, airplane, freight express or shoe-leather!). Much like the invention of the telegraph allowed classical bits to be transported at high speed across continents, so also quantum teleportation holds the promise that one day, qubits could be moved likewise. However, as of 2013, only photons and single atoms have been teleported; molecules have not, nor does this even seem likely in the upcoming years, as the technology remains daunting. Specific distance and quantity records are stated below. The movement of qubits does require the movement of "things"; in particular, the actual teleportation protocol requires that an entangled quantum state orBell state be created, and its two parts shared between two locations (the source and destination, or Alice and Bob). In essence, a certain kind of "quantum channel" between two sites must be established first, before a qubit can be moved. Teleportation also requires a classical information link to be established, as two classical bits must be transmitted to accompany each qubit. The need for such links may, at first, seem disappoiniting; however, this is not unlike ordinary communications, which requires wires, radios or lasers. What's more, Bell states are most easily shared using photons from lasers, and so teleportation could be done, in principle, through open space. Single atoms have been teleported,[1][2][3] although not in the science-fiction sense. An atom consists of several parts: the qubits in the electronic state orelectron shells surrounding the atomic nucleus, the qubits in the nucleus itself, and, finally, the electrons, protons and neutrons making up the atom. Physicists have teleported the qubits encoded in the electronic state of atoms; they have not teleported the nuclear state, nor the nucleus itself. Thus, performing this kind of teleportation requires a feedstock of atoms at the receiving site, that are readily available for having qubits imprinted on them. In an abstract sense, the feedstock is not strictly necessary: the atoms and their nuclei could be created, for example, with atom-smashers or via nuclear fusion;

this, however, would be economically absurd, and so a feedstock is used instead. The importance of teleporting nuclear state is unclear: nuclear state does affect the atom, e.g. in hyperfine splitting, but whether such state would need to be teleported in some futuristic "practical" application is debatable. The quantum world is strange and unusual; so, aside from no-cloning and no-deleting, there are other oddities. For example, quantum correlations arising from Bell states seem to be instantaneous (the Alain Aspect experiments), whereas classical bits can only be transmitted slower than the speed of light (quantum correlations cannot be used to transmit classical bits; again, this is the no-communication theorem). Thus, teleportation, as a whole, can never besuperluminal, as a qubit cannot be reconstructed until the accompanying classical bits arrive. The proper description of quantum teleportation requires a basic mathematical toolset, which, although complex, is not out of reach of advanced high-school students, and indeed becomes accessible to college students with a good grounding in finite-dimensional linear algebra. In particular, the theory of Hilbert spaces and projection matrixes is heavily used. A qubit is described using a two-dimensional complex numbervalued vector space (a Hilbert space); the formal manipulations given below do not make use of anything much more than that. Strictly speaking, a working knowledge of quantum mechanics is not required to understand the mathematics of quantum teleportation, although without such acquaintance, the deeper meaning of the equations may remain quite mysterious.