Physical-resource demands for scalable quantum computation
arXiv:quant-ph/0304083 · doi:10.1117/12.504760
Abstract
The primary resource for quantum computation is Hilbert-space dimension. Whereas Hilbert space itself is an abstract construction, the number of dimensions available to a system is a physical quantity that requires physical resources. Avoiding a demand for an exponential amount of these resources places a fundamental constraint on the systems that are suitable for scalable quantum computation. To be scalable, the number of degrees of freedom in the computer must grow nearly linearly with the number of qubits in an equivalent qubit-based quantum computer.
This paper will be published in the proceedings of the SPIE Conference on Fluctuations and Noise in Photonics and Quantum Optics, Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 1--4, 2003