Holonomic quantum logic gates.pdf

a r X i v : q u a n t - p h / 0 2 0 2 1 0 6 v 1 1 9 F e b 2 0 0 2 Holonomic quantum logic gates Marie Ericsson Department of Quantum Chemistry, Uppsala University, Box 518, Se-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden Email:marie.ericsson@kvac.uu.se This is a brief overview of quantum holonomies in the context of quantum com- putation. We choose an adequate set of quantum logic gates, namely, a phase gate, the Hadamard gate, and a conditional-phase gate and show how they can be implemented by purely geometric means. Such gates may be more resilient to certain types of errors. 1 Introduction Any quantum computation can be build out of simple operations involving only one or two quantum bits (qubits). Such operations are called quantum logic gates and a finite number of them suffices to construct any quantum boolean network, and therefore any quantum computer. Moreover, efficient and reliable quantum-coherent computation of arbitrarily long duration is possible, even with faulty components. That is, errors can be corrected faster than they occur, even if the error correction machinery is faulty. Such fault tolerance is only possible if the size of the systematic error in the quantum logic gates is not greater than 10?8 (possibly a pessimistic estimate). Motivated by this precision requirement we here consider quantum logic gates which are of a geometric / holonomic rather than dynamical origin and therefore are resilient to certain types of errors. They may offer the potential of an intrinsically fault-tolerant computation. As a set of adequate (universal) quantum gates we choose a phase gate, the Hadamard gate, and a conditional-phase gate. In the standard notation, in which the computational basis is formed out of the two orthogonal states of a quantum bit (qubit) labelled as | 0〉 and | 1〉, the action of the gates is defined as follows: ? The phase gate: | 0〉 7→ | 0〉 and | 1〉 7→ eiα | 1〉, for some prescribed α. ? The Hadamard gate: | 0〉 7→ 1√ 2 (| 0〉+ | 1〉), | 1〉 7→ 1√ 2 (| 0〉 ?