quantum information and computation_nature.pdfVIP

review article Quantum information and computation Charles H. Bennett David P. DiVincenzo IBM Research Division, T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ In information processing, as in physics, our classical world view provides an incomplete approximation to an underlying quantum reality. Quantum effects like interference and entanglement play no direct role in conventional information processing, but they can—in principle now, but probably eventually in practice—be harnessed to break codes, create unbreakable codes, and speed up otherwise intractable computations. Information and computation theory have undergone a spurt of new growth, and a renewal of their historic connection to basic physics, as they have expanded to treat the intact transmission and processing of quantum states, and the interaction of such ‘quantum information’ with traditional forms of information. We may wonder why this did not happen earlier, as quantum principles have long been accepted as fundamental to all of physics. Perhaps the founders of information and computation theory, such as Shannon, Turing and von Neumann, were too accustomed to thinking of information processing in macroscopic terms, not yet having before them the powerful examples of the genetic code and ever-shrinking microelectronics. Be that as it may, information until recently has largely been thought of in classical terms, with quantum mechanics playing a supporting role in the design of the equipment to process it, and setting limits on the rate at which it could be sent through certain channels. Now we know that a fully quantum theory of information and information processing offers, among other bene?ts, a brand of cryptogra