The Initialization Problem in Quantum Computing

Abstract

The problem of initializing phase in a quantum computing system is considered. The initialization of phases is a problem when the system is initially present in an entangled state and also in the application of the quantum gate transformations since each gate will introduce phase uncertainty. The accumulation of these random phases will reduce the effectiveness of the recently proposed quantum computing schemes. The paper also presents general observations on the nonlocal nature of quantum errors and the expected performance of the proposed quantum error-correction codes that are based on the assumption that the errors are either bit-flip or phase-flip or both. It is argued that these codes cannot directly solve the initialization problem of quantum computing.