Quantum Computing

Catalog description

Quantum phenomena are computationally intractable on a classical computer due to an exponential number of computations involved in keeping track of quantum states. Quantum computing seeks to exploit nature's ability to do these computations in parallel for solving certain problems faster than is possible on classical computers. In this introductory course, we discuss the quantum model of computation and explore its power and its limitations. In the first part of the course, we review the basic postulates of quantum mechanics and give several simple but amazing results to build an intuitive understanding of the behavior of quantum bits. In the second part of the course, we discuss quantum algorithms. We start with simple algorithms that demonstrate how quantum computing differs from classical computing and then discuss more sophisticated algorithms like Shor's factoring algorithm, Grover's search algorithm. In the third part of the course, we give brief introductions to quantum random walks, quantum cryptography, quantum error correction and Hamiltonian simulation.