From imaginary experiments to

quantum information
Luis A. Orozco
St. Marys College, March 2013.
www.jqi.umd.edu

With special thanks to:

William D. Phillips
Howard J. Carmichael
Steven L. Rolston
Pablo Barberis Blostein
Ivan H. Deutsch
Work supported by
National Science Foundation

speed!

Classical World

time!

10,000X!

50 micrometers!

Quantum World

10,000X!

The world becomes discrete it comes in quanta!

It all started in the 19th century

 The birth of quantum theory

an act of desperationI had to obtain a positive result
under any circumstances and at whatever cost

Oct. 7, 1900
3

8h
1
( ,T ) =
3
h / kT
c
e
1
Coffee and Cake with the Rubens

Max Planck

 1905 the photon, is the quantum of

light"

Albert Einstein

 Radioactivity has been around for 15 years. "

use alpha particles to
bombard gold atoms and
look at how they bounce
back. Some come back
almost in the same
trajectory implying a very
small but highly
concentrated group of
positive charges."

Ernest Rutherford

1911Rutherford discovers
the nucleus"

1913 visit to Rutherford

Niels Bohr

 1920s Quantum Theory

Heisenberg
Schrodinger
Dirac
De Broglie
Pauli
Born

 Quantum Theory
Described by wavefunction
Describes probability, not reality. This is the source
of many discussions.
Uncertainty principle two properties (such as
position and velocity) cannot simultaneously be
known to arbitrary accuracy
Wave-particle duality things can be wavelike or
particlelike
Principle of superposition
Wavefunction collapse when measured

An electron is like a spinning top.

The spin can

only point up

or down

AND it can be BOTH up and down at

the same time!
SUPERPOSTION:

1
2

( + )

How can something be in two places at the same time?

This cube could be

Fred Alan Wolf, "Taking the Quantum Leap"

(Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1981)

How can something be in two places at the same time?

this

or

Fred Alan Wolf, "Taking the Quantum Leap"

(Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1981)

How can something be in two places at the same time?

or

Fred Alan Wolf, "Taking the Quantum Leap"

(Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1981)

this

but

this

and

this

No classical analog to superposition exists.

Fred Alan Wolf, "Taking the Quantum Leap"
(Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1981)

 Quantum Mechanics
The most successful physical theory
Tested to parts in a trillion
Never proven wrong or incomplete*

Except it is not yet compatible with general relativity (gravity).

 Quantum Mechanics enabled the Information

Age
The transistor (1948)
Microelectronics
Lasers (1960)
Magnetic storage

 Quantum mechanics has given us a superb

understanding of chemistry and materials

Einstein was not happy

with the consequences of
quantum mechanics

Schroedinger reacted to
the questions of Einstein
with the term
Entanglement.
This is where quantum
mechanics gets weird.

If blue is measured V, red MUST be H

David Wineland Nobel Lecture

Correlations

If blue is measured -45, red MUST be +45

The dialogue between Bohr and Einstein was long

and many times included imaginary experiments
(gedanken) that quantum mechanics always
explained

Bohr drew this

imaginary experiment
to study the relation
between time and
energy with Einstein

 1964 John Bell:

Is entanglement
measurable?
If we assume reality
and locality, this is not
consistent with the
results of QM
tested numerous times

 Bell theorem on 1964 implies that

You must give up something:

Objective Reality
Locality (causality)

 Quantum mechanics is a theory about

our (incomplete) knowledge of nature, not
of nature itself.
And thats all there is.

The end of Moores Law

In terms of size [of transistor] you can see that we are
approaching the size of atoms which is a fundamental
barrierWe have another 10 to 20 years . G. Moore
2009."

"Put weirdness of quantum mechanics to

work
A second quantum revolution

David Wineland, Nobel Lecture

Experiments manage to trap work individual matter quanta

starting in the 70s.
Trapped electrons and ions (Dehmelt and Wineland)
Quantum jumps of electrons between levels in an ion
(Dehmelt, Toshek, Wineland)

Hans Dehmelt

David Wineland

Monoelectron Oscillator, D. Wineland, P. Ekstrom,

and H. Dehmelt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 31, 2179 (1973)

Experiments manage to trap and work with individual light

quanta starting in the 80s.
Trapped photons (Walther and Haroche)
Micro-laser, Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics.

Herbert Walther

Serge Haroche

Peter Zoller

Jean Dalibard

Howard Carmichael

Quantum Mechanical formulation based on Quantum Jumps

(Zoller, Dalibard, Carmichael)

Observation of Quantum Jumps in a Single Ion, J. C.

Bergquist, Randall G. Hulet, Wayne M. Itano, and D. J. Wineland
Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 1699 (1986)

Serge Haroche, Nobel Lecture

Serge Haroche, Nobel lecture

Two trapped ions (JQI Monroe Lab)

Terraciano et al Nature Physics 2009

Bennett
(1982)

Landauer
(1961)

Benioff
(1985)

Reversible computing (thermodynamics)

Quantum Information

Quantum simulations

Feynman
(1982)

Model of a universal quantum circuit

Deutsch
(1985)

A New Science!
Quantum
Mechanics

20th Century

Quantum Information Science

21st Century

Information
Science

Classical Bits vs Quantum Bits

Classical Bit: 0 or 1; or
Quantum Bit (Qubit):
Can be a quantum superposition of 0 and 1

=
qubit

But entanglement, and the scaling that results, is the key

to the power of quantum computing.
Classically information is stored in a bit register: a 3-bit
register can store one number from 0 to 7
101
Quantum Mechanically, a register of 3 entangled
qubits can store all of these numbers in superposition:
a|000 + b|001 + c|010 + d| 011 + e|100 + f|101 + g| 110 + h| 111

Result:
-- Classical: one N-bit number
-- Quantum: 2N (all possible) N-bit numbers

A hard problem-factoring large integers:

For example, it is hard to factor 167 659

But an elementary school student can easily multiply

389 x 431 = 167 659

CRYPTOGRAPHY
Virtually all public key cryptographic systems
rely on the difficulty of factoring large numbers
If you can figure out how to do this, your credit
card is not safe and neither are government
communications, financial transactions,
personal information

12301866845301177551304949583849627207728535695
9
53347921973224521517264005072636575187452021997
8
64693899564749427740638459251925573263034537315
4
82685079170261221429134616704292143116022212404
7
9274737794080665351419597459856902143413

12301866845301177551304949583849627207728535695
9
53347921973224521517264005072636575187452021997
8
64693899564749427740638459251925573263034537315
4
82685079170261221429134616704292143116022212404
2 years 1000 7computers
9274737794080665351419597459856902143413

1230186684530117755130494958384962720772853569595334792197
3224521517264005072636575187452021997864693899564749427740
6384592519255732630345373154826850791702612214291346167042
9214311602221240479274737794080665351419597459856902143413
1230186684530117755130494958384962720772853569595334792197
3224521517264005072636575187452021997864693899564749427740
6384592519255732630345373154826850791702612214291346167042
9214311602221240479274737794080665351419597459856902143413

4 years 1,000,000,000,000 computers

The Quantum Computer

1994 Peter Shor
With Quantum Mechanics, it is
possible to factor an N-digit
number in ~ N3 steps much
faster than the exponentially large
number of steps that we need
now.

Quantum computing:
Universial machine (Shors algorithm)
Quantum simulation

Quantum cryptography:
Key distribution (QKD)
Secret sharing

Quantum Communication:
Channel capacity
Distributed computing

Quantum metrology
Precision sensors

A quantum computer (if we can make one) would be more

different from our current digital computers than our computers
are from the ancient abacus.

A general-purpose quantum computer is years away, but

along the way we will be exploring some of the most
important outstanding questions in science.

Quantum Mechanics and Information Science have been

two of the most important and revolutionary developments
in the XX Century, affecting both science and technology
Quantum mechanics changed the way we think about the
physical world and the nature of reality. It gave us modern
electronics with all its advantages.
Information science changed the way we think about
thinking. They gave us digital information.
They are now merging into Quantum information and we
can only wait a greater revolution.

Thanks!