All our former experience with application of quantum theory seems to say:
{\it what is predicted by quantum formalism must occur in laboratory} But the
essence of quantum formalism - entanglement, recognized by Einstein, Podolsky,
Rosen and Schr\"odinger - waited over 70 years to enter to laboratories as a
new resource as real as energy This holistic property of compound quantum systems, which involves
nonclassical correlations between subsystems, is a potential for many quantum
processes, including ``canonical'' ones: quantum cryptography, quantum
teleportation and dense coding However, it appeared that this new resource is
very complex and difficult to detect Being usually fragile to environment, it
is robust against conceptual and mathematical tools, the task of which is to
decipher its rich structure This article reviews basic aspects of entanglement including its
characterization, detection, distillation and quantifying In particular, the
authors discuss various manifestations of entanglement via Bell inequalities,
entropic inequalities, entanglement witnesses, quantum cryptography and point
out some interrelations They also discuss a basic role of entanglement in
quantum communication within distant labs paradigm and stress some
peculiarities such as irreversibility of entanglement manipulations including
its extremal form - bound entanglement phenomenon A basic role of entanglement
witnesses in detection of entanglement is emphasized

Quantum entanglement

Meeting the Universe Halfway is an ambitious book with far-reaching implications for numerous fields in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In this volume, Karen Barad, theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, elaborates her theory of agential realism. Offering an account of the world as a whole rather than as composed of separate natural and social realms, agential realism is at once a new epistemology, ontology, and ethics. The starting point for Barad’s analysis is the philosophical framework of quantum physicist Niels Bohr. Barad extends and partially revises Bohr’s philosophical views in light of current scholarship in physics, science studies, and the philosophy of science as well as feminist, poststructuralist, and other critical social theories. In the process, she significantly reworks understandings of space, time, matter, causality, agency, subjectivity, and objectivity.

In an agential realist account, the world is made of entanglements of “social” and “natural” agencies, where the distinction between the two emerges out of specific intra-actions. Intra-activity is an inexhaustible dynamism that configures and reconfigures relations of space-time-matter. In explaining intra-activity, Barad reveals questions about how nature and culture interact and change over time to be fundamentally misguided. And she reframes understanding of the nature of scientific and political practices and their “interrelationship.” Thus she pays particular attention to the responsible practice of science, and she emphasizes changes in the understanding of political practices, critically reworking Judith Butler’s influential theory of performativity. Finally, Barad uses agential realism to produce a new interpretation of quantum physics, demonstrating that agential realism is more than a means of reflecting on science; it can be used to actually do science.

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning

The statistical error in any estimation can be reduced by repeating the measurement and averaging the results. The central limit theorem implies that the reduction is proportional to the square root of the number of repetitions. Quantum metrology is the use of quantum techniques such as entanglement to yield higher statistical precision than purely classical approaches. In this Review, we analyse some of the most promising recent developments of this research field and point out some of the new experiments. We then look at one of the major new trends of the field: analyses of the effects of noise and experimental imperfections.

Advances in quantum metrology

Quantum mechanics, through the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, imposes limits on the precision of measurement. Conventional measurement techniques typically fail to reach these limits. Conventional bounds to the precision of measurements such as the shot noise limit or the standard quantum limit are not as fundamental as the Heisenberg limits and can be beaten using quantum strategies that employ “quantum tricks” such as squeezing and entanglement.

Quantum-enhanced measurements: beating the standard quantum limit.

The first quantum technology that harnesses quantum mechanical effects for its core operation has arrived in the form of commercially available quantum key distribution systems. This technology achieves enhanced security by encoding information in photons such that an eavesdropper in the system can be detected. Anticipated future quantum technologies include large-scale secure networks, enhanced measurement and lithography, and quantum information processors, which promise exponentially greater computational power for particular tasks. Photonics is destined to have a central role in such technologies owing to the high-speed transmission and outstanding low-noise properties of photons. These technologies may use single photons, quantum states of bright laser beams or both, and will undoubtedly apply and drive state-of-the-art developments in photonics.

Photonic quantum technologies

Summary form only given. It has been known for some time that entangled photon pairs, such as generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion, have unusual imaging characteristics with sub-shot-noise interferometric phase measurement. In fact, Fonseca, et al., recently demonstrated resolution of a two-slit diffraction patterned at half the Rayleigh limit in a coincidence counting experiment. What we show is that this type of effect is possible not only in coincidence counting experiments, but also in real two-photon absorbing systems, such as those used in classical interferometric lithography. In particular, we will demonstrate that quantum entanglement is the resource that allows sub-diffraction limited lithography.

/pdf/quantum-interferometric-lithography-exploiting-entanglement-shpquv5jfu.pdf

Quantum interferometric lithography: exploiting entanglement to beat the diffraction limit

In order to demonstrate nontrivial quantum computations experimentally, such as the synthesis of arbitrary entangled states, it will be useful to understand how to decompose a desired quantum computation into the shortest possible sequence of one-qubit and two-qubit gates. We contribute to this effort by providing a method to construct an optimal quantum circuit for a general two-qubit gate that requires at most 3 controlled-NOT (CNOT) gates and 15 elementary one-qubit gates. Moreover, if the desired two-qubit gate corresponds to a purely real unitary transformation, we provide a construction that requries at most 2 CNOT and 12 one-qubit gates. We then prove that these constructions are optimal with respect to the family of CNOT, $y$-rotation, $z$-rotation, and phase gates.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0308006.pdf

Optimal quantum circuits for general two-qubit gates

By the year 2020, the basic memory components of a computer will be the size of individual atoms. At such scales, the current theory of computation will become invalid. A new field called "quantum computing" is emerging that is reinventing the foundations of computer science and information theory in a way that is consistent with quantum physics - the most accurate model of reality that is currently known. Remarkably, this new theory predicts that quantum computers can perform certain tasks breathtakingly faster than classical computers, and, better yet, can accomplish mind-boggling feats such as teleporting information, breaking supposedly "unbreakable" codes, generating true random numbers, and communicating with messages that betray the presence of eavesdropping. "Explorations in Quantum Computing" explains these burgeoning developments in simple terms, and describes the key technological hurdles that must be overcome in order to make quantum computers a reality. This book draws upon the very latest research and uses executable software simulations to help explain the material and allow the reader to experiment with the ideas behind quantum computers. This is the ideal text for anyone wishing to learn more about the next, perhaps "ultimate," computer revolution.

Explorations in Quantum Computing

We demonstrate that two spatially separated parties (Alice and Bob) can utilize shared prior quantum entanglement, and classical communications, to establish a synchronized pair of atomic clocks. In contrast to classical synchronization schemes, the accuracy of our protocol is independent of Alice's or Bob's knowledge of their relative locations or of the properties of the intervening medium.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0004105.pdf

Quantum clock synchronization based on shared prior entanglement

The quantum Fourier transform (QFT), a quantum analog of the classical Fourier transform, has been shown to be a powerful tool in developing quantum algorithms. However, in classical computing there is another class of unitary transforms, the wavelet transforms, which are every bit as useful as the Fourier transform. Wavelet transforms are used to expose the multi-scale structure of a signal and are likely to be useful for quantum image processing and quantum data compression. In this paper, we derive efficient, complete, quantum circuits for two representative quantum wavelet transforms, the quantum Haar and quantum Daubechies $D^{(4)}$ transforms. Our approach is to factor the operators for these transforms into direct sums, direct products and dot products of unitary matrices. In so doing, we find that permutation matrices, a particular class of unitary matrices, play a pivotal role. Surprisingly, we find that operations that are easy and inexpensive to implement classically are not always easy and inexpensive to implement quantum mechanically, and vice versa. In particular, the computational cost of performing certain permutation matrices is ignored classically because they can be avoided explicitly. However, quantum mechanically, these permutation operations must be performed explicitly and hence their cost enters into the full complexity measure of the quantum transform. We consider the particular set of permutation matrices arising in quantum wavelet transforms and develop efficient quantum circuits that implement them. This allows us to design efficient, complete quantum circuits for the quantum wavelet transform.

Colin P. Williams

Papers

Quantum interferometric lithography: exploiting entanglement to beat the diffraction limit

Optimal quantum circuits for general two-qubit gates

Explorations in Quantum Computing

Quantum clock synchronization based on shared prior entanglement

Quantum Wavelet Transforms: Fast Algorithms and Complete Circuits