Full quantum theory of control-not gate in ion-trap quantum computation

Abstract

We investigate the exact effect on ion trap quantum computation after field quantization. First an exact expression of failure probability from field quantization after many CNOT operations in Cirac-Zoller scheme is given. It is proportional to operation number and the amplitude of $|1\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|1\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$ in initial state, and inverse proportional to mean number of photons and amplitude of $|0\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|0\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$ in initial state. Then we calculate the failure probability when the limitation to mean number of photons in sideband transition is considered. When the initial state is $|1\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|1\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$, after about $10^2$ times of CNOT operations, failure probability is no less than $10^{-2}$, while $10^{-2}$ is the known maximum threshold in fault-tolerant quantum computation. Then when the initial state is $|1\rangle_x |0\rangle_y$ or $|1\rangle_x |1\rangle_y$, the number of CNOT gates on the same pair of physical qubits should be no more than $10^2$ in one error-correction period, or else the computation cannot be implemented reliably. This conclusion can help to determine the number of CNOT operations between coding and decoding in one error-correction period in fault-tolerant quantum computation.