A Practical Introduction to Quantum

Computing: From Qubits to Quantum

Machine Learning and Beyond

Elı́as F. Combarro
[email protected]

CERN openlab (Geneva, Switzerland) - University of Oviedo (Oviedo, Spain)

CERN - November/December 2020

 Part I

Introduction: quantum computing...

the end of the world as we know it?

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I, for one, welcome our new quantum overlords

Image credits: sciencenews.org

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Philosophy of the course

Image credits: Modified from an Instagram image by Bob MacGuffie

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Tools and resources
• Jupyter Notebooks
• Web application to create and execute notebooks that
include code, images, text and formulas
• They can be used locally (Anaconda) or in the cloud
(mybinder.org, Google Colab...)
• IBM Quantum Experience
• Free online access to quantum simulators (up to 32 qubits)
and actual quantum computers (1, 5 and 15 qubits) with
different topologies
• Programmable with a visual interface and via different
languages (python, qasm, Jupyter Notebooks)
• Launched in May 2016
• https://quantum-computing.ibm.com/

Image credits: IBM 5 / 30

Tools and resources (2)

• Quirk
• Online simulator (up to 16 qubits)
• Lots of different gates and visualization options
• http://algassert.com/quirk
• D-Wave Leap
• Access to D-Wave quantum computers
• Ocean: python library for quantum annealing
• Problem specific (QUBO, Ising model...)
• https://www.dwavesys.com/take-leap

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The shape of things to come

Image credits: Created with wordclouds.com

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What is quantum computing?
Quantum computing
Quantum computing is a computing paradigm that exploits
quantum mechanical properties (superposition, entanglement,
interference...) of matter in order to do calculations

Image credits: Erik Lucero

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Models of quantum computing
• There are several models of quantum computing (they’re
all equivalent)
• Quantum Turing machines
• Quantum circuits
• Measurement based quantum computing (MBQC)
• Adiabatic quantum computing
• Topological quantum computing
• Regarding their computational capabilities, they are
equivalent to classical models (Turing machines)

Image credits: Getty Images

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Quantum and classical computational complexity

Image credits: wikipedia.org

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What technologies are used to build quantum
computers?

Image credits: Graphic by C. Bickle/Science data by Gabriel Popkin

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What is a quantum computer like?

Image credits: IBM

The Sounds of IBM: IBM Q

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Programming a quantum computer
• Different frameworks and programming languages:
• qasm
• Qiskit (IBM)
• Cirq (Google)
• Forest/pyqil (Rigetti)
• Q# (Microsoft)
• Ocean (D-Wave)
• ...
• Most of them for quantum circuit specification

Image credits: IBM

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What are the elements of a quantum circuit?

• Every computation has three elements: data, operations

and results
• In quantum circuits:
• Data = qubits
• Operations = quantum gates (unitary transformations)
• Results = measurements

Image credits: Adobe Stock

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 Part II

One-qubit systems: one qubit to

rule them all

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What is a qubit?
• A classical bit can take two different values (0 or 1). It is
discrete.
• A qubit can “take” infinitely many different values. It is
continuous.
• Qubits live in a Hilbert vector space with a basis of two
elements that we denote |0i y |1i.
• A generic qubit is in a superposition
|ψi = α |0i + β |1i
where α and β are complex numbers such that
|α|2 + |β|2 = 1

Image credits: https://prateekvjoshi.com/ 16 / 30

Measuring a qubit
• The way to know the value of a qubit is to perform a
measurement. However
• The result of the measurement is random
• When we measure, we only obtain one (classical) bit of
information
• If we measure the state |ψi = α |0i + β |1i we get 0 with
probability |α|2 and 1 with probability |β|2 .
• Moreover, the new state after the measurement will be |0i
or |1i depending of the result we have obtained
(wavefunction colapse)
• We cannot perform several independent measurements of
|ψi because we cannot copy the state (no-cloning
theorem)

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The Bloch sphere

• A common way of representing the state of a qubit is by

means of a point in the surface of the Bloch sphere
• If |ψi = α |0i + β |1i with |α|2 + |β|2 = 1 we can find angles
γ, δ, θ such that
θ
α = eiγ cos
2
θ
β = eiδ sin
2
• Since an overall phase is physically irrelevant, we can
rewrite
θ θ
|ψi = cos |0i + eiϕ sin |1i
2 2
with 0 ≤ θ ≤ π and 0 ≤ ϕ < 2π.

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The Bloch sphere (2)
• From |ψi = cos 2θ |0i + eiϕ sin 2θ |1i we can obtain spherical
coordinates for a point in R3
(sin θ cos ϕ, sin θ sin ϕ, cos θ)

Image credits: wikipedia.org

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What are quantum gates?

• Quantum mechanics tells us that the evolution of an

isolated state is given by the Schrödinger equation

• In the case of quantum circuits, this implies that the

operations that can be carried out are given by unitary
matrices. That is, matrices U of complex numbers verifying

UU † = U † U = I

where U † is the conjugate transpose of U.

• Each such matrix is a possible quantum gate in a quantum
circuit

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Reversible computation
• As a consequence, all the operations have an inverse:
reversible computing
• Every gate has the same number of inputs and outputs
• We cannot directly implement some classical gates such
as or , and, nand, xor ...
• But we can simulate any classical computation with small
overhead
• Theoretically, we could compute without wasting energy
(Landauer’s principle, 1961)

Image credits: wikipedia.org 21 / 30

One-qubit gates

• When we have just one qubit |ψi = α |0i + β |1i, we usually

 
α
represent it as a column vector
β
• Then, a one-qubit gate can be identified with a matrix
 
a b
U= that satisfies
c d
    
a b a c 1 0
=
c d b d 0 1

where a, b, c, d are the conjugates of complex numbers

a, b, c, d.

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Action of a one-qubit gate

• A state |ψi = α |0i + β |1i is transformed into

    
a b α aα + bβ
=
c d β cα + dβ

that is, into the state |ψi = (aα + bβ) |0i + (cα + dβ) |1i
• Since U is unitary, it holds that

|(aα + bβ)|2 + |(cα + dβ)|2 = 1

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The X or NOT gate

• The X gate is defined by the (unitary) matrix

 
0 1
1 0

• Its action (in quantum circuit notation) is

|0i X |1i

|1i X |0i
that is, it acts like the classical NOT gate
• On a general qubit its action is

α |0i + β |1i X β |0i + α |1i

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The Z gate

• The Z gate is defined by the (unitary) matrix

 
1 0
0 −1

• Its action is
|0i Z |0i

|1i Z − |1i

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The H or Hadamard gate
• The H or Hadamard gate is defined by the (unitary) matrix
 
1 1 1
√
2 1 −1
• Its action is
|0i+|1i
|0i H √
2

|0i−|1i
|1i H √
2
• We usually denote

|0i + |1i
|+i := √
2
and
|0i − |1i
|−i := √
2
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Other important gates

• Y gate
 
0 −i
i 0
• S gate
 
1 0
π
0 ei 2
• T gate
 
1 0
π
0 ei 4
• The gates X , Y and Z are also called, together with the
identity, the Pauli gates. An alternative notation is σX , σY ,
σZ .

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Rotation gates

• We can define the following rotation gates

cos 2θ −i sin 2θ
 
−i θ2 X θ θ
RX (θ) = e = cos I − i sin X =
2 2 −i sin 2θ cos 2θ

cos 2θ − sin 2θ
 
θ θ θ
RY (θ) = e−i 2 Y = cos I − i sin Y =
2 2 sin 2θ cos 2θ

θ
!
e−i 2
 
−i θ2 Z θ θ 0 1 0
RZ (θ) = e = cos I−i sin Z = ≡
2 2 0
θ
ei 2 0 eiθ

• Notice that RX (π) ≡ X , RY (π) ≡ Y , RZ (π) ≡ Z ,

RZ ( π2 ) ≡ S, RZ ( π4 ) ≡ T

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Using rotation gates to generate one-qubit gates

• For any one-qubit gate U there exist a unit vector

r = (rx , ry , rz ) and an angle θ such that

θ θ θ
U ≡ e−i 2 r ·σ = cos I − i sin (rx X + ry Y + rz Z )
2 2
• For instance, choosing θ = π and r = ( √1 , 0, √1 ) we can
2 2
see that
θ 1
H ≡ e−i 2 r ·σ = −i √ (X + Z )
2
• Additionally, it can also be proved that there exist angles α,
β and γ such that

U ≡ RZ (α)RY (β)RZ (γ)

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Hello, quantum world!

• Our very first quantum circuit!

|0i H

• After applying the H gate the qubit state is

|0i + |1i
√
2
• When we measure, we obtain 0 or 1, each with 50%
probability: we have a circuit that generates perfectly
uniform random bits!

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