E-Book Overview
The new technological prospects of processing quantum infor- mation are attracting not only physicists but also re- searchers from other communities, most prominently computer scientists. This book provides a self-contained introduction to the basic theoretical concepts, experimental techniques and recent advances in the fields of quantum communication, quantum information and quantum computation. In accordance with their interdisciplinary character, these central research topics in the emerging area of quantum technology are addressed both from the physical point of view and from the point of view of computer science, by leading experts. The introductory and self-contained character of the contributions should make this book particularly attractive to students and active researchers in physics and computer science who want to become acquainted with the underlying basic ideas and recent advances in the rapidly evolving field of quantum information processing.
E-Book Content
1 From the Foundations of Quantum Theory to Quantum Technology – an Introduction Gernot Alber
Nowadays, the new technological prospects of processing quantum information in quantum cryptography [1], quantum computation [2] and quantum communication [3] attract not only physicists but also researchers from other scientific communities, mainly computer scientists, discrete mathematicians and electrical engineers. Current developments demonstrate that characteristic quantum phenomena which appear to be surprising from the point of view of classical physics may enable one to perform tasks of practical interest better than by any other known method. In quantum cryptography, the nocloning property of quantum states [4] or the phenomenon of entanglement [5] helps in the exchange of secret keys between various parties, thus ensuring the security of one-time-pad cryptosystems [6]. Quantum paralleli