Quantum Turing machine

2020 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary: 68Q05 Secondary: 03D10 [MSN][ZBL]

The quantum Turing machine (QTM) is the quantum analogon of a Turing machine (TM). For many aspects, a close analogy to the classical counterpart exists. Though a quantum Turing machine can be defined more or less canonically, several conceptional problems associated with it and concerning the notion of 'quantum computation' exist and are still unsolved. Other properties of the quantum Turing machine like the question, whether universality does hold or not, are unknown as well.

Quantum Aspects of Computation

Church-Turing Thesis

The Church-Turing thesis defines an 'algorithm' as a description of a calculation. But is this the whole story? A calculation is not only a platonic object, usually it is intended to execute the actual calculation in one way or the other. Put in other words, the calculation should be realized physically. Then, the device executing the calculation has to be considered as physical system. A calculation is the execution of a physical experiment, and its result is provided by the observation of the experiment.

Today, many devices executing calculations are known. They are not limited to digital computers. Other types are e.g. analogous computers, soap-bubble based computers, the DNA-computing approach, and the Antikythera mechanism. This leads to the question, whether the restriction to classical models of computation like Turing machines is really adequate.

Church-Turing-Deutsch Thesis

The idea of the Turing machine dates back to the year 1936. At this time, the physical world seemed to be dominated by mechanical forces; correspondingly, the definition of a Turing machine is based on the ideas of classical mechanics. And though the physical realization of a Turing machine, the digital computer, actually uses quantum mechanics, its construction principles aims at the suppression of any effect associated with the quantum world. With ever-tighter package density, however, this is not achievable anymore in a perfect way. The effects of quantum theory may begin to have an influence on the outcome of the calculation.

Considered from another perspective, computations executed by humans are mental processes. In this way, the Church-Turing thesis is also a statement about the human mind. The Platonic world (including computations) is a mental construction. The brain, which is generating the Platonic world, is a physical system in turn; and at the microscopic level, this system has a quantum mechanical nature.

Consequently it seems to be questionable whether the Turing machine provides a 'natural' model of computation. Searching for alternatives and taking the quantum nature of the world into consideration, Feynman has the idea of quantum computation in 1982. As model executing such a quantum computation, he proposes the quantum Turing machine as quantum theoretical analogon to the Turing machine. Similar ideas were developed independently by Yuri Manin in 1980. Accordingly, David Deutsch generalized the Church-Turing thesis to the Church-Turing-Deutsch thesis in 1985, which states that every computation, which can be realized physically, can be executed using a quantum Turing machine.

Quantum Measurements

This section summarizes basic properties of quantum measurements. They are the necessary prerequisite for the discussion of quantum Turing machines. In order to simplify the following considerations, we will make two assumptions.

• The eigenspaces are not degenerated
• The operators associated with measurements have a discrete spectrum

These assumptions help us to concentrate on the foundations instead of technicalities.

Let us now consider a measurement executed by applying an observable $\hat O=|\psi_i \rangle\langle \psi_i |$ having an Eigenvalue $a_i$ with a corresponding Eigenvector $| \psi_i\rangle$. The probability $p$ of measuring the Eigenvalue $a_i$ in a state $| \psi\rangle=\sum_l \alpha_l | \psi_l\rangle \in\mathcal{H}$ is given by $p=|\langle \psi_i |\psi\rangle|^2= |\alpha_i|^2$. When measuring the Eigenvalue $a_i$, the original state $| \psi\rangle$ is changed to the corresponding Eigenvector $| \psi_i\rangle\in\mathcal{H}$ as new quantum state.

Quantum theory would not be probabilistical without measurements. The probabilistic nature could be explained as a result of an interaction between the measurement system and the quantum system, which leads to an entanglement of states. Consequently, the quantum system does not evolve independent from the outside world anymore, its future state is influenced by the measurement system.

Example: Qubits

A Qubit represents a quantum state $Q$ having 2 ground states $\{0,1\}$. Accordingly, $Q$ is given by $$ Q= \alpha | 0\rangle + \beta | 1\rangle.$$ This leads to a 2-dimensional Hilbert-space $\mathcal{H}\cong \mathbb{C}^2$. The probabilities of measuring the ground states are equal to $|\alpha|^2$ and $|\beta|^2$. It holds $ |\alpha|^2 + |\beta|^2 = 1 $, i.e. for example $$Q=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}| 0\rangle - \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}| 1\rangle.$$

The situation described here is not identical with a random bit having values $\{0,1\}$ and probabilities $|\alpha|^2 $, $|\beta|^2$. Whereas a total of 4 different transformations can explain all possible transformations of a random bit, a Qubit can be transformed in infinitely many ways. The possible transformations applied on a Qubit can be represented by rotations of a so-called Bloch sphere.

Definition of a Quantum-Turing-Machine

From Classical to Quantum Dynamics

The basic construction of a quantum Turing machine resembles the classical Turing machine. We assume an infinite tape and the existence of a read/write head. With exception of the transition function $\delta$, all other components of the definition can be reformulated canonically.

• $Q=\{q_i\}_i$, finite state set
• $\Sigma=\{\sigma_j\}_j$, finite input alphabet
• $\Gamma=\{\gamma_k\}_k$, finite tape alphabet
• $\sqcup\in \Gamma$, blank symbol with $\sqcup \notin \Sigma$
• $q_0\in Q$, start state
• $F \subseteq Q$, set of end states

Lance Fortnow (2003) has developed a formalism, which unifies the definitions of a classical Turing machine, a nondeterministic Turing machine, a probabilistic Turing machine, and a quantum Turing machine. His formalism addresses the aspects of the dynamics, which can not be canonically translated to the quantum level. The problem is that the transition function $\delta$ of a Turing machine has the form $\delta\colon Q\times\Sigma\to Q\times\Sigma \times \{L,R,N\}$, wherein the expression $\{L,R,N\}$ does not represent a set of states but a set of head actions. As a way-out, Fortnow proposes a representation of $\delta$ as transition matrix in the space $(q,B,i)\in Q\times \Gamma^\ast \times \mathbb{Z}=:C$ of configurations. The actual configuration, which consists of the (local) state of the Turing machine, the content of its tape, and the position of its head on the tape, provides some kind of global state of the Turing machine. Accordingly, the set $C=\{c_i\}_{i\in I}$ of configurations is used for representing the ground states of the physical system. Assuming $c_i=(\ldots,0,1,0,\ldots)^t$, $\delta\colon c_i\mapsto c_j$ becomes a transition function operating on $C$ representable as a matrix $U$: $$U_{ji} := \begin{cases} 1 & \text{$c_i \buildrel \delta\over\longrightarrow c_j$}\\ 0 & \text{otherwise} \end{cases} $$ The permutation property $U \cdot c_i = c_j$ ressembles the (classical) Turing machine. If instead of $U_{ij}\in\{0,1\}$ a probability matrix with $U_{ij}\in \mathbb{R}$ is used, the case of a probabilistic Turing machine is ressembled. For the case of a quantum Turing machine $M$, a unitary matrix $U$ is chosen with $U_{ij}\in \mathbb{C}$. The matrix $U$ represents an operator $\hat U$ describing the quantum dynamics of $M$. Due to the property of unitarity, the dynamics must be reversible. It determines the 'program' of $M$. A computation step of $M$ has the form $| \psi(n+1)\rangle=\hat U | \psi(n)\rangle= \hat U^{n+1}| \psi(0)\rangle$. According to its construction, $\hat U$ changes the content of the quantum 'tape' only at the position $i$ of the head. Furthermore, $\hat U$ moves the head at most one step to the right or to the left. Due to $U_{ij}\in \mathbb{C}$, interference is possible with amplification and extinction. The notion of superposition becomes relevant, leading to interdependences between states.

David Deutsch (1985) completed the construction of a quantum Turing machine using the results of Lance Fortnow. In the quantum analogon, a configuration $\psi=(q,B,i)\in C$ is interpreted as (ground) state $| \psi\rangle =|q\rangle|B\rangle|i\rangle$. This gives the countable base of the corresponding Hilbert space. For an input $x$, the start configuration $c_{{\mathrm{init}}(x)}$ of the quantum Turing machine is represented by $| \psi(0)\rangle= | q_0\rangle | x\rangle| 1\rangle$ and with exception of $x$, the tape is empty.

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