How Quantum Computers Fail: Quantum Codes, Correlations in Physical Systems, and Noise Accumulation

Abstract

The feasibility of computationally superior quantum computers is one of the most exciting and clear-cut scientific questions of our time. The question touches on fundamental issues regarding probability, physics, and computability, as well as on exciting problems in experimental physics, engineering, computer science, and mathematics. We propose three related directions towards a negative answer. The first is a conjecture about physical realizations of quantum codes, the second has to do with correlations in stochastic physical systems, and the third proposes a model for quantum evolutions when noise accumulates. The paper is dedicated to the memory of Itamar Pitowsky.

16 pages

References in corpus (8)

• Fault-tolerant quantum computation by anyons
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• Maintaining coherence in Quantum Computers
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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Gaussian Noise Sensitivity and BosonSampling
• Quantum Annealing - Foundations and Frontiers
• The Quantum Computer Puzzle (Expanded Version)
• Resource optimization for fault-tolerant quantum computing
• The Role of Correlated Noise in Quantum Computing
• Sufficient condition on noise correlations for scalable quantum computing
• The Computational Power of Non-interacting Particles
• Notes on Adiabatic Quantum Computers