Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of Mechanical Engineering 6.050J/2.110J – Information, Entropy and Computation – Spring 2010

Unit 13: Quantum Information

Schedule

Lecture Handouts

Students who for any reason did not receive these items can pick them up in Room 38-344. Most of this material is also available on the 6.050J/2.110J Web site http://mtlsites.mit.edu/Courses/6.050.

• Unit 13 Resources (this page)
• 6.050J/2.110J Notes,
  • Chapter 13, Quantum Information (including detail section by Luis Pérez-Breva)
• T. P. Spiller, “Quantum Information Processing: Cryptography, Computation, and Teleportation,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 84, no. 12, pp. 1719–1746; December, 1996. Although this paper is several years old, it provides an excellent introduction for students
• Isaac L. Chuang, Lieven M. K. Vandersypen, Xinlan Zhou, Debbie W. Leung, and Seth Lloyd, “Experimental Realization of a Quantum Algorithm,” Nature, vol. 393, p. 6681; 1998
• Seth Lloyd, “Quantum-mechanical Maxwell’s demon,” Physical Review A, vol. 56, no. 5, pp. 3374–3382; November, 1997
  • “The cost of forgetting,” The Economist, December 13, 1997. A popular summary of this scientific paper
• “Quantum Information,” Physics World, pp. 35–57; March, 1998. Some popular articles covering various aspects of quantum information, including quantum communication, quantum cryptography, quantum computing, and some possible ways of implementing the ideas
• Richard P. Feynman, “Simulating Physics with Computers,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics, vol. 21, nos. 6/7, pp. 467–488; 1982. Keynote speech at a conference held at MIT that was one of the first in the newly developing field of quantum information
• Bruce Kane, “Scalable Quantum Computing Using Solid-State Devices,” The Bridge, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 5–8; Winter, 2002. Technologies that might support quantum information processing and scale to a reasonable number of qubits
• Michael Hiltzik, “Harnessing Quantum Bits,” Technology Review, vol. 106, no. 2, pp. 58–63; March, 2003. Story about implementations of quantum computers from several laboratories

Reading Assignment

• Chapter 13, Quantum Information

Resources

Technical

Prof. John Preskill teaches a course on quantum information at Caltech. Lecture notes.
An extensive set of links to tutorials on quantum information.

Several universities have research and teaching activities in quantum information processing. Among these are:

• MIT, efforts in many departments and labs.
• Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo.
• Centre for Quantum Computation, University of Oxford.

One of the most active industrial research groups in quantum information is at IBM Research Yorktown. This was the home of one of the early leaders in the field, the late Rolf Landauer, and younger people including Charles H. Bennett, who is known for many contributions including his work on quantum teleportation. Another very active group is the Quantum Information Processing Group at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.

Historical

• Rolf Landauer obituary.
• Richard P. Feynman biography. Feynman, an MIT graduate, was curious about the nature of quantum information.

Books

There are already many books and conferences on quantum information, even though the field is new.

• Hoi-Kwong Lo, Sandu Popescu, and Tim Spiller, “Introduction to Quantum Computation and Information,” World Scientific, Singapore; 1998. The book is based on a lecture series held at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK, November 1996 – April, 1997.
• Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang, “Quantum Computation and Quantum Information,” Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK; 2000. This is probably the best of the books intended for scientists and engineers. Chuang, an MIT graduate, is currently on the MIT faculty.
• Dirk Bouwbeester, Artur Ekert, and Anton Zeilinger, editors, “The Physics of Quantum Information: Quantum Cryptography, Quantum Teleportation, Quantum Computation,” Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany; 2000.
• Jeffrey H. Shapiro and Osamu Hirota, editors, “Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing,” July 22–26, 2002, Cambridge, MA; Rinton Press, Princeton, NJ; 2003.
• George Johnson, “A Shortcut through Time: The Path to the Quantum Computer,” Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY; 2003. This book, written by a New York Times science writer, is for the general public and may not be technical enough for some readers.

James Clerk Maxwell opened up the relationship between information and entropy by proposing what is called today Maxwell’s Demon, which would apparently violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Maxwell’s Demon in its many forms has captured the imagination of both scientists and the general public.

• Leon Brillouin, “Science and Information Theory,” Second Edition, Academic Press Inc, London, England; 1962. Topics include Brownian motion, thermal noise, information theory, entropy, and the author’s personal view of Maxwell’s Demon.
• Harvey S. Leff and Andrew F. Rex, “Maxwell’s Demon: Entropy, Information, Computing,” Adam Hilger, Bristol BS1 6NX, England; 1990. General historical discussion with many reprints of original papers but not, regrettably, any of Maxwell’s own publications.
• Hans Christian von Baeyer, “Maxwell’s Demon,” Random House, New York; 1998. A very good review for the general public, by a Professor of Physics at the College of William and Mary, this book was written before the quantum version of the demon was understood as well as it is today.

Help Wanted

6.050J/2.110J students: be the first to suggest a resource, for example a useful Web site or a good book or article, to add to the list above. Send your suggestion by e-mail during Spring 2010 to 6.050-staff at mit.edu.