Quantum Information Theory and Computation
| instructor | nicolas macris |
| office | inr 134 |
| phone | +4121 6938114 |
| nicolas.macris@epfl.ch | |
| lectures | monday 10h15-12h00, room BC 02 |
Special announcements
No prerequisites in quantum mechanics and/or information theory are needed.
A draft of course notes will be updated weekly here draftDec14.pdf.
This is a 4 credit course. Exam form is oral.
Objectives
The support of information is material. Today one is able to manipulate matter at the nanoscale were quantum behavior becomes important. It is possible that
ultimately information processing will have to take into account the laws of quantum physics. This course introduces the theoretical concepts and methods that have been developed in the last 25 years to take advantage of guenuine quantum resources. We will see how the concepts of bit, entropy, and Shannon's theory are extended to the quantum domain. We will emphasize the role of entanglement which is a distinctly quantum feature. We will also see how useful quantum parallelism can be in the theory of quantum computation.
Outline: the course is divided in three parts
- Introduction to quantum mechanics, Qbits and quantum cryptography.
- Quantum information theory.
- Quantum computation, and quantum error correcting codes.
A subset of the following topics will be treated in class.
| Part 1: QM, Qbits, Cryptography | |
|---|---|
| Experiments with light, analyzers and polarizers | |
| Mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics | |
| Quantum key distribution protocols | |
| Quantum entanglement | |
| Part 2: Quantum Information Theory | |
| Density matrix formalism | |
| Quantum entropy | |
| Accessible information | |
| Source coding theorem | |
| Quantum channel models | |
| Channel capacity theorems | |
| Part 3: Computation and Error Correction | |
| Models of computation and Deutsch-Josza problem | |
| Hidden subgroup problem | |
| Period finding, Quantum Fourier Transform and Shor algorithm | |
| Search algorithm (Grover) | |
| Adiabatic quantum computation | |
| Quantum error correction | |
Papers
- A collection of reprinted articles can be found in Quantum computation and quantum information theory eds C. Macchiavello, G.M.Palma, A.Zeilinger world scientific (2000).
- A review on quantum cryptography reviews of modern physics (2002)
- Recent hacking of a QKD system based on BB84 nature comm (2011)
Books related to the lectures
- A rather complete reference Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, by Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang, Cambridge University Press (2004).
- A book that covers quantum computing An introduction to quantum computing, by Phillip Kaye, Raymond Laflamme and Michele Mosca, Oxford University Press (2007).
- For an emphasis on computer science aspects Quantum computing, by Mika Hirvensalo, Springer Verlag (2001).
For a more physical introduction
- A small pedagogic book A short introduction to quantum information and quantum computation, by Michel Le Bellac, Cambridge University Press (2006).
To learn quantum mechanics seriously
- Quantum Mechanics by Albert Messiah, ed Dover (two volumes bound as one).
- Feynman lectures on Physics, vol 3 by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, Matthew Sands (1998) Addison Wesley.