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We propose a new point of view regarding the problem of time in quantum mechanics, based on the idea of replacing the usual time operator $mathbf{T}$ with a suitable real-valued function $T$ on the space of physical states. The proper characterization of the function $T$ relies on a particular relation with the dynamical evolution of the system rather than with the infinitesimal generator of the dynamics (Hamiltonian). We first consider the case of classical Hamiltonian mechanics, where observables are functions on phase space and the tools of differential geometry can be applied. The idea is then extended to the case of the unitary evolution of pure states of finite-level quantum systems by means of the geometric formulation of quantum mechanics. It is found that $T$ is a function on the space of pure states which is not associated to any self-adjoint operator. The link between $T$ and the dynamical evolution is interpreted as defining a simultaneity relation for the states of the system with respect to the dynamical evolution itself. It turns out that different dynamical evolutions lead to different notions of simultaneity, i.e., the notion of simultaneity is a dynamical notion.
A strong direct product theorem says that if we want to compute k independent instances of a function, using less than k times the resources needed for one instance, then our overall success probability will be exponentially small in k. We establish such theorems for the classical as well as quantum query complexity of the OR function. This implies slightly weaker direct product results for all total functions. We prove a similar result for quantum communication protocols computing k instances of the Disjointness function. Our direct product theorems imply a time-space tradeoff T^2*S=Omega(N^3) for sorting N items on a quantum computer, which is optimal up to polylog factors. They also give several tight time-space and communication-space tradeoffs for the problems of Boolean matrix-vector multiplication and matrix multiplication.
The preparation of quantum systems and the execution of quantum information tasks between distant users are always affected by gravitational and relativistic effects. In this work, we quantitatively analyze how the curved space-time background of the Earth affects the classical and quantum correlations between photon pairs that are initially prepared in a two-mode squeezed state. More specifically, considering the rotation of the Earth, the space-time around the Earth is described by the Kerr metric. Our results show that these state correlations, which initially increase for a specific range of satellites orbital altitude, will gradually approach a finite value with increasing height of satellites orbit (when the special relativistic effects become relevant). More importantly, our analysis demonstrates that the changes of correlations generated by the total gravitational frequency shift could reach the level of <0.5$%$ within the satellites height at geostationary Earth orbits.
A locking protocol between two parties is as follows: Alice gives an encrypted classical message to Bob which she does not want Bob to be able to read until she gives him the key. If Alice is using classical resources, and she wants to approach unconditional security, then the key and the message must have comparable sizes. But if Alice prepares a quantum state, the size of the key can be comparatively negligible. This effect is called quantum locking. Entanglement does not play a role in this quantum advantage. We show that, in this scenario, the quantum discord quantifies the advantage of the quantum protocol over the corresponding classical one for any classical-quantum state.
Python is a popular programming language known for its flexibility, usability, readability, and focus on developer productivity. The quantum software community has adopted Python on a number of large-scale efforts due to these characteristics, as well as the remote nature of near-term quantum processors. The use of Python has enabled quick prototyping for quantum code that directly benefits pertinent research and development efforts in quantum scientific computing. However, this rapid prototyping ability comes at the cost of future performant integration for tightly-coupled CPU-QPU architectures with fast-feedback. Here we present a language extension to Python that enables heterogeneous quantum-classical computing via a robust C++ infrastructure for quantum just-in-time (QJIT) compilation. Our work builds off the QCOR C++ language extension and compiler infrastructure to enable a single-source, quantum hardware-agnostic approach to quantum-classical computing that retains the performance required for tightly coupled CPU-QPU compute models. We detail this Pythonic extension, its programming model and underlying software architecture, and provide a robust set of examples to demonstrate the utility of our approach.
Classical one-time-pad key can only be used once. We show in this Letter that with quantum mechanical information media classical one-time-pad key can be repeatedly used. We propose a specific realization using single photons. The reason why quantum mechanics can make the classical one-time-pad key repeatable is that quantum states can not be cloned and eavesdropping can be detected by the legitimate users. This represents a significant difference between classical cryptography and quantum cryptography and provides a new tool in designing quantum communication protocols and flexibility in practical applications. Note added: This work was submitted to PRL as LU9745 on 29 July 2004, and the decision was returned on 11 November 2004, which advised us to resubmit to some specialized journal, probably, PRA, after revision. We publish it here in memory of Prof. Fu-Guo Deng (1975.11.12-2019.1.18), from Beijing Normal University, who died on Jan 18, 2019 after two years heroic fight with pancreatic cancer. In this work, we designed a protocol to repeatedly use a classical one-time-pad key to transmit ciphertext using single photon states. The essential idea was proposed in November 1982, by Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, Seth Breidbart, which was rejected by Fifteenth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, and remained unpublished until 2014, when they published the article, Quantum Cryptography II: How to re-use a one-time pad safely even if P=NP, Natural Computing (2014) 13:453-458, DOI 10.1007/s11047-014-9453-6. We worked out this idea independently. This work has not been published, and was in cooperated into quant-ph 706.3791 (Kai Wen, Fu Guo Deng, Gui Lu Long, Secure Reusable Base-String in Quantum Key Distribution), and quant-ph 0711.1642 (Kai Wen, Fu-Guo Deng, Gui Lu Long, Reusable Vernam Cipher with Quantum Media).