Topological quantum computation - Microsoft Research Station strongQstrong.pdfVIP

Topological quantum computation Sankar Das Sarma, Michael Freedman, and Chetan Nayak The search for a large-scale, error-free quantum computer is reaching an intellectual junction at which semiconductor physics, knot theory, string the- ory, anyons, and quantum Hall effects are all coming together to produce quantum immunity. Sankar Das Sarma is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and director of the university’s condensed matter theory center. Michael Freedman is director of Microsoft Project Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Chetan Nayak is a senior researcher at Microsoft Project Q and a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at the Uni- versity of California, Los Angeles. Quantum mechanics is arguably the most successful be corrected as long as the decoherence is sufficiently weak. quantitative theory of nature. The theory is now 80 years old, If one thinks of quantum decoherence as unwanted noise and no violation of quantum mechanics has ever been in quantum computation, then effective “software” error cor- detected in any laboratory despite a huge number of experi- rection depends on eliminating or minimizing noise in the mental tests involving light, atoms, molecules, and solids, as computer. That approach is similar in spirit to error correc- well as nuclei, electrons, and other subatomic particles. In tion in classical digital computers. For quantum computa- fact, various experimental tests of quantum electrodynamics tion, however, an alternative strategy, topological q