Notes on Deterministic Programming of Quantum Observables and Channels

Abstract

We study the limitations of deterministic programmability of quantum circuits, e.g., quantum computer. More precisely, we analyse the programming of quantum observables and channels via quantum multimeters. We show that the programming vectors for any two different sharp observables are necessarily orthogonal, whenever post-processing is not allowed. This result then directly implies that also any two different unitary channels require orthogonal programming vectors. This approach generalizes the well-known orthogonality result first proven by Nielsen and Chuang. In addition, we give size-bounds for a multimeter to be efficient in quantum programming.