Spring 2005
Lecturer: Eduardo Mucciolo (office in MAP 416, ext 3-1882, mucciolo@physics.ucf.edu )
Schedule and Location: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 10:30-11:20 am, in the Math and Physics Building, room 204. Office hours: Wednesdays and Fridays, 11:30-12:30 pm.
Credit hours: 3 units.
Prerequisites: Elementary linear algebra and basic calculus. Some knowledge of elementary quantum mechanics will be helpful, but not required. The course is aimed at senior undergraduate or first-year graduate students majoring in any science or engineering field.
Content:
1) Motivation and Overview: quantum bits (qubits), quantum gates and computation, quantum algorithms.
2) Classical Computation: Turing machines, computational complexity, complexity classes.3) The Basics of Quantum Mechanics: linear algebra, postulates of Quantum Mechanics, superposition, interference, entanglement, time evolution, phase coherence.
4) Quantum Circuits: qubit operations and quantum gates, universal quantum gates.
5) Quantum Computation: quantum computational complexity, quantum algorithms, Shor’s factorization algorithm, search algorithms.
6) Physical Implementations: optical and atomic, nuclear (NMR), solid state, scalability, the decoherence problem.
Textbook:Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, by Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang (Cambridge University Press, 2000). This is a comprehensible and accessible reference to the subject. There are also several very good review articles and lecture notes on the subject. Here is a brief list:
- John Preskill’s lecture notes, which can be found in his webpage at http://www.theory.caltech.edu/people/preskill/ . There one also finds many links to other quantum computation resources.
- Michael Nielsen’s Summer School lecture notes at http://www.qinfo.org/people/nielsen/qicss.html .
- A. Ekert and R. Jozsa, Quantum computation and Shor’s factoring algorithm, Review of Modern Physics 68, 733-753 (1996).
During the course, other relevant references and auxiliary material will be provided.
Grading: The grade will be based on homework (50%) and a final paper (50%). Problem sets will be handed out every two-three weeks. Topics for the final paper will be provided by the instructor.
CALENDAR (tentative)
PROBLEM SETS (pdf files)
#1 (due Friday, February 04)
#2 (due Monday, February 28)
#3 (due Friday, April 01)
#4 (due Monday, April 25)
NOTES (pdf files)
Lecture #1
Lecture #2
Lecture #3
Lecture #4
Lecutre #5
Lecutre #6
Lecutre #7
Eduardo Mucciolo 2005-02-05