Thermal states as universal resources for quantum computation with always-on interactions

Measurement-based quantum computation utilizes an initial entangled resource state and proceeds with subsequent single-qubit measurements. It is implicitly assumed that the interactions between qubits can be switched off so that the dynamics of the measured qubits do not affect the computation. By proposing a model spin Hamiltonian, we demonstrate that measurement-based quantum computation can be achieved on a thermal state with always-on interactions. Moreover, computational errors induced by thermal fluctuations can be corrected and thus the computation can be executed fault tolerantly if the temperature is below a threshold value.     

Quantum mechanical hamiltonian models of turing machines

Quantum mechanical Hamiltonian models, which represent an aribtrary but finite number of steps of any Turing machine computation, are constructed here on a finite lattice of spin-1/2 systems. Different regions of the lattice correspond to different components of the Turing machine (plus recording system). Successive states of any machine computation are represented in the model by spin configuration states. Both time-independent and time-dependent Hamiltonian models are constructed here. The time-independent models do not dissipate energy or degrade the system state as they evolve. They operate close to the quantum limit in that the total system energy uncertainty/computation speed is close to the limit given by the time-energy uncertainty relation. However, the model evolution is time global and the Hamiltonian is more complex. The time-dependent models do not degrade the system state. Also they are time local and the Hamiltonian is less complex.     

Quantum simulation of classical thermal states

We establish a connection between ground states of local quantum Hamiltonians and thermal states of classical spin systems. For any discrete classical statistical mechanical model in any spatial dimension, we find an associated quantum state such that the reduced density operator behaves as the thermal state of the classical system. We show that all these quantum states are unique ground states of a universal 5-body local quantum Hamiltonian acting on a (polynomially enlarged) qubit system on a 2D lattice. The only free parameters of the quantum Hamiltonian are coupling strengths of two-body interactions, which allow one to choose the type and dimension of the classical model as well as the interaction strength and temperature. This opens the possibility to study and simulate classical spin models in arbitrary dimension using a 2D quantum system.     

Observing Majorana bound states in p-wave superconductors using noise measurements in tunneling experiments

The zero-energy bound states at the edges or vortex cores of chiral p-wave superconductors should behave like Majorana fermions. We introduce a model Hamiltonian that describes the tunneling process when electrons are injected into such states. Using a nonequilibrium Green function formalism, we find exact analytic expressions for the tunneling current and noise and identify experimental signatures of the Majorana nature of the bound states to be found in the shot noise. We discuss the results in the context of different candidate materials that support triplet superconductivity. Experimental verification of the Majorana character of midgap states would have important implications for the prospects of topological quantum computation.     

Maximum Speedup in Quantum Search: O(1) Running Time

We consider the running time of the generalized quantum search Hamiltonian. We provide the surprising result that the maximum speedup of quantum search in the generalized Hamiltonian is an O(1) running time regardless of the number of total states. This seems to violate the proof of Zalka that the quadratic speedup is optimal in quantum search. However the argument of Giovannetti et al. that a quantum speedup comes from the interaction between subsystems (or, equivalently entanglement) (and is concerned with the Margolus and Levitin theorem) supports our result.     

Noncyclic nonadiabatic holonomic quantum gates via shortcuts to adiabaticity

High-fidelity quantum gates are essential for large-scale quantum computation. However, any quantum manipulation will inevitably affected by noises, systematic errors and decoherence effects, which lead to infidelity of a target quantum task. Therefore, implementing high-fidelity, robust and fast quantum gates is highly desired. Here, we propose a fast and robust scheme to construct high-fidelity holonomic quantum gates for universal quantum computation based on resonant interaction of three-level quantum systems via shortcuts to adiabaticity. In our proposal, the target Hamiltonian to induce noncyclic non-Abelian geometric phases can be inversely engineered with less evolution time and demanding experimentally, leading to high-fidelity quantum gates in a simple setup. Besides, our scheme is readily realizable in physical system currently pursued for implementation of quantum computation. Therefore, our proposal represents a promising way towards fault-tolerant geometric quantum computation.     

Variational quantum eigensolvers by variance minimization

The original variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) typically minimizes energy with hybrid quantum-classical optimization that aims to find the ground state. Here, we propose a VQE based on minimizing energy variance and call it the variance-VQE, which treats the ground state and excited states on the same footing, since an arbitrary eigenstate for a Hamiltonian should have zero energy variance. We demonstrate the properties of the variance-VQE for solving a set of excited states in quantum chemistry problems. Remarkably, we show that optimization of a combination of energy and variance may be more efficient to find low-energy excited states than those of minimizing energy or variance alone. We further reveal that the optimization can be boosted with stochastic gradient descent by Hamiltonian sampling, which uses only a few terms of the Hamiltonian and thus significantly reduces the quantum resource for evaluating variance and its gradients.     

Gapped two-body Hamiltonian for continuous-variable quantum computation

We introduce a family of Hamiltonian systems for measurement-based quantum computation with continuous variables. The Hamiltonians (i) are quadratic, and therefore two body, (ii) are of short range, (iii) are frustration-free, and (iv) possess a constant energy gap proportional to the squared inverse of the squeezing. Their ground states are the celebrated Gaussian graph states, which are universal resources for quantum computation in the limit of infinite squeezing. These Hamiltonians constitute the basic ingredient for the adiabatic preparation of graph states and thus open new venues for the physical realization of continuous-variable quantum computing beyond the standard optical approaches. We characterize the correlations in these systems at thermal equilibrium. In particular, we prove that the correlations across any multipartition are contained exactly in its boundary, automatically yielding a correlation area law.     

A classification of spin 1/2 matrix product states with two dimensional auxiliary matrices

We classify the matrix product states having only spin-flip and parity symmetries, which can be constructed from two dimensional auxiliary matrices. We show that there are three distinct classes of such states and in each case, we determine the parent Hamiltonian and the points of possible quantum phase transitions. For two of the models, the interactions are three-body and for the other the interaction is two-body.     

Product-State Approximations to Quantum States

We show that for any many-body quantum state there exists an unentangled quantum state such that most of the two-body reduced density matrices are close to those of the original state. This is a statement about the monogamy of entanglement, which cannot be shared without limit in the same way as classical correlation. Our main application is to Hamiltonians that are sums of two-body terms. For such Hamiltonians we show that there exist product states with energy that is close to the ground-state energy whenever the interaction graph of the Hamiltonian has high degree. This proves the validity of mean-field theory and gives an explicitly bounded approximation error. If we allow states that are entangled within small clusters of systems but product across clusters then good approximations exist when the Hamiltonian satisfies one or more of the following properties: (1) high degree, (2) small expansion, or (3) a ground state where the blocks in the partition have sublinear entanglement. Previously this was known only in the case of small expansion or in the regime where the entanglement was close to zero. Our approximations allow an extensive error in energy, which is the scale considered by the quantum PCP (probabilistically checkable proof) and NLTS (no low-energy trivial-state) conjectures. Thus our results put restrictions on the possible Hamiltonians that could be used for a possible proof of the qPCP or NLTS conjectures. By contrast the classical PCP constructions are often based on constraint graphs with high degree. Likewise we show that the parallel repetition that is possible with classical constraint satisfaction problems cannot also be possible for quantum Hamiltonians, unless qPCP is false. The main technical tool behind our results is a collection of new classical and quantum de Finetti theorems which do not make any symmetry assumptions on the underlying states.     

Three- and four-body interactions in spin-based quantum computers

In the effort to design and to construct a quantum computer, several leading proposals make use of spin-based qubits. These designs generally assume that spins undergo pairwise interactions. We point out that, when several spins are engaged mutually in pairwise interactions, the quantitative strengths of the interactions can change and qualitatively new terms can arise in the Hamiltonian, including four-body interactions. In parameter regimes of experimental interest, these coherent effects are large enough to interfere with computation and may require new error correction or avoidance techniques.     

General entanglement scaling laws from time evolution

We establish a general scaling law for the entanglement of a large class of ground states and dynamically evolving states of quantum spin chains: we show that the geometric entropy of a distinguished block saturates, and hence follows an entanglement-boundary law. These results apply to any ground state of a gapped model resulting from dynamics generated by a local Hamiltonian, as well as, dually, to states that are generated via a sudden quench of an interaction as recently studied in the case of dynamics of quantum phase transitions. We achieve these results by exploiting ideas from quantum information theory and tools provided by Lieb-Robinson bounds. We also show that there exist noncritical fermionic systems and equivalent spin chains with rapidly decaying interactions violating this entanglement-boundary law. Implications for the classical simulatability are outlined.     

Quantum speed limit for qubit systems: Exact results

Given an initial state, a target state, and a driving Hamiltonian, how fast can the initial state evolve into the target state according to the Schröchinger dynamics? This problem arises in a variety of contexts such as quantum computation, quantum control, and in particular, the problem of maximum information processing rate of quantum systems, and has been studied extensively due to its fundamental importance. In this paper, we purse further the study in the qubit case in which the particular structure admits stronger results. We use the quantum fidelity as well as relative entropy as a figure of merit to characterize the closeness between a fixed initial qubit state and another one undergoing unitary evolution. We work out explicitly maximal and minimal fidelity and relative entropy by determining the closest and the farthest states to the target state and show that these results are unique for qubit systems. We also determine the minimal time for a state to evolve to the extremal states (that is, the farthest one evolved from the initial state in the sense of minimal fidelity or maximal relative entropy), which generalizes the celebrated Mandelstam–Tamm bound and the Margolus–Levitin bound for qubit systems. We further reveal an interesting fact that this minimal time is independent of the initial states.     

Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states and few-body Hamiltonians

The generation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states is a crucial problem in quantum information. We derive general conditions for obtaining GHZ states as eigenstates of a Hamiltonian. We find that a necessary condition for an n-qubit GHZ state to be a nondegenerate eigenstate of a Hamiltonian is the presence of m-qubit couplings with m≥[(n+1)/2]. Moreover, we introduce a Hamiltonian with a GHZ eigenstate and derive sufficient conditions for the removal of the degeneracy.     

Effect of local minima on adiabatic quantum optimization

We present a perturbative method to estimate the spectral gap for adiabatic quantum optimization, based on the structure of the energy levels in the problem Hamiltonian. We show that, for problems that have an exponentially large number of local minima close to the global minimum, the gap becomes exponentially small making the computation time exponentially long. The quantum advantage of adiabatic quantum computation may then be accessed only via the local adiabatic evolution, which requires phase coherence throughout the evolution and knowledge of the spectrum. Such problems, therefore, are not suitable for adiabatic quantum computation.     

Strong Analog Classical Simulation of Coherent Quantum Dynamics

A strong analog classical simulation of general quantum evolution is proposed, which serves as a novel scheme in quantum computation and simulation. The scheme employs the approach of geometric quantum mechanics and quantum informational technique of quantum tomography, which applies broadly to cases of mixed states, nonunitary evolution, and infinite dimensional systems. The simulation provides an intriguing classical picture to probe quantum phenomena, namely, a coherent quantum dynamics can be viewed as a globally constrained classical Hamiltonian dynamics of a collection of coupled particles or strings. Efficiency analysis reveals a fundamental difference between the locality in real space and locality in Hilbert space, the latter enables efficient strong analog classical simulations. Examples are also studied to highlight the differences and gaps among various simulation methods.     

An Alternative Adiabatic Quantum Algorithm for the Hamiltonian Cycle Problem

We put forward an alternative quantum algorithm for finding Hamiltonian cycles in any N-vertex graph based on adiabatic quantum computing. With a von Neumann measurement on the final state, one may determine whether there is a Hamiltonian cycle in the graph and pick out a cycle if there is any. Although the proposed algorithm provides a quadratic speedup, it gives an alternative algorithm based on adiabatic quantum computation, which is of interest because of its inherent robustness.     

Quasiclassical Hamiltonians for large-spin systems

We extend and apply a previously developed method for a semiclassical treatment of a system with large spin S. A multisite Heisenberg Hamiltonian is transformed into an effective classical Hamilton function which can be treated by standard methods for classical systems. Quantum effects enter in form of multispin interactions in the Hamilton function. The latter is written in the form of an expansion in powers of J/(TS), where J is the coupling constant. Main ingredients of our method are spin coherent states and cumulants. Rules and diagrams are derived for computing cumulants of groups of operators entering the Hamiltonian. The theory is illustrated by calculating the quantum corrections to the free energy of a Heisenberg chain which were previously computed by a Wigner-Kirkwood expansion. Received 5 May 1999 and received in final form 24 September 1999     

键长-键角和Radau坐标下哈密顿算符在傅里叶基组表象下的厄米性

在量子动力学计算中,有时候为了规避奇点问题或者节省计算量,我们经常需要对哈密顿量进行变换. 然而,在使用傅里叶基矢计算时,哈密顿量的变换形式容易导致哈密顿矩阵失去厄米性,进而有些情况下使数值计算变得不稳定. 本文主要讨论构建具有厄米性的哈密顿算符的方法. 以三原子分子为例,构建了键长—键角和Radau坐标下描述分子运动的各种形式的哈密顿量. 基于这些哈密顿量,采用含时波包方法计算了OClO分子的吸收光谱,讨论了非厄米性矩阵对计算结果的影响. 本文所得到的结论对基于基函数展开的量子动力学计算都是适用的.