A Rosetta Stone for Quantum Mechanics with an Introduction to Quantum Computation

Abstract

The purpose of these lecture notes is to provide readers, who have some mathematical background but little or no exposure to quantum mechanics and quantum computation, with enough material to begin reading the research literature in quantum computation and quantum information theory. This paper is a written version of the first of eight one hour lectures given in the American Mathematical Society (AMS) Short Course on Quantum Computation held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the AMS in Washington, DC, USA in January 2000, and will appear in the AMS PSAPM volume entitled "Quantum Computation." Part 1 of the paper is an introduction the to the concept of the qubit. Part 2 gives an introduction to quantum mechanics covering such topics as Dirac notation, quantum measurement, Heisenberg uncertainty, Schrodinger's equation, density operators, partial trace, multipartite quantum systems, the Heisenberg versus the Schrodinger picture, quantum entanglement, EPR paradox, quantum entropy. Part 3 gives a brief introduction to quantum computation, covering such topics as elementary quantum computing devices, wiring diagrams, the no-cloning theorem, quantum teleportation, Shor's algorithm, Grover's algorithm. Many examples are given. A table of contents as well as an index are provided for readers who wish to "pick and choose." Since this paper is intended for a diverse audience, it is written in an informal style at varying levels of difficulty and sophistication from the very elementary to the more advanced.