Chapter I: Qubits, Operators and

Quantum gates
Qubit:
In this chapter, we will give a brief introduction to the fundamental concepts of the quantum

computation. The basic unit of classical computation and information processing is bit, which

can assume either a state 0 or a state 1. In an analogous manner, the basic unit of information

processing in a quantum computer is a quantum bit or qubit. Like a bit, a qubit can also be in

one of two states. We label these two states by |0> and |1>. While a bit can be in the state 0 or

in the state 1, a qubit can exist in the state |0> or the state |1>, and it can also exist in a

superposition state. This state is a linear combination of the states |0> and |1>. If a state |ψ> is

a superposition state, it can be written as,

|ψ> = α|0> + β|1> ; where α, β are complex numbers

A qubit can exist in a superposition state of |0> and |1> but when it is measured it can only be

found either in state |0> or in state |1>. Laws of quantum mechanics tell us that the square of

the modulus of the coefficient of the states |0> and |1> gives the probability of finding the

qubit in state |0> and |1> respectively. So, |𝛼|2 and |𝛽|2 give the probability of finding |ψ> in

state |0> and |1> respectively. Since the probabilities must add up to 1, it implies that,

|𝛼|2 + |𝛽|2 = 1

Then the qubit is said to be normalized.

It is often useful to visualize the state of a single qubit and for that purpose Bloch spheres are

used.

Since |𝛼|2 + |𝛽|2 = 1 then |ψ> can be effectively written as,

𝜃 𝜃
|𝜓 >= cos (2) |0 > +𝑒 𝑖∅ sin (2) |1 >
The parameters 𝜃and ∅ specify a point on the surface of the unit three-dimensional sphere,

called the Bloch sphere. Many of the operations on single qubits can be described using the

Bloch sphere picture, shown below.

Bloch sphere

Now, we aim to get a brief overview of the mathematical background, needed to understand

the concepts of quantum computation. When a measurement is made on a state of a qubit, its

final state is defined by the last measurement outcome. An observable is a measurable

dynamical variable. A measurement defines an observable. In the domain of quantum physics,

we associate states as vectors in a vector space and observables as operators.

We will now develop the formalism of quantum mechanics-terminology, concepts and

mathematical tools in order to construct the theoretical base of quantum computation.

Vector space:

The arena in which quantum computation takes place is a mathematical abstraction called a

vector space. Quantum states behave mathematically in an analogous way to column vectors.

So, the vector space that is important in quantum computation is the vector space Cn, which is

the vector space of “n-tuples” of complex numbers. We label the elements of Cn by |a>, |b>,

|c>. Then we write down an element of this vector space as an n-dimensional column vector.
Let αi be a set of complex coefficients and |vi> be a set of vectors. A linear combination of

these vectors is given by

α1|v1>+ α2|v2> + ··· + αn|vn> = ∑𝑛𝑖=1 𝛼𝑖 |𝑣𝑖 >

The vectors |v1>, |v2>…|vn> are said to be linearly independent if α1|v1>+ α2|v2> +···+ αn|vn>

= 0 and αi= 0 for all i=1, 2…. n.

A set S is a basis for V if S is linearly independent and it spans the vector space. The number

of vectors in S is the dimension of the vector space. Many basis sets exist in Cn.

Inner product of vectors:

This is a generalization of the dot product used with ordinary vectors in Euclidean space.

While the dot product takes two vectors and maps them into a real number, in this case the

inner product will take two vectors from Cn and map them to a complex number. We write

the inner product between two vectors |u> and |v> using the notation <u|v>.

If the inner product between two vectors is zero, i.e. <u|v>=0 then |u> and |v> are said to be

orthogonal to each other.

The inner product between two vectors satisfies the following properties,

1. <u|v>* =<v|u>

2. <u|v+w>= <u|v> +<u|w>

We can use the inner product to define a norm by computing the inner product of the vector

with itself.
 ||𝑢|| = √< 𝑢|𝑢 > with <u|u> ≥ 0

A vector with a unit norm is known as a normalized vector.

The Hermitian conjugate of a vector |u> is |u>† = <u|.

In quantum theory <u| is sometimes called the dual vector or bra corresponding to the ket |u>.

If a ket is a column vector, the dual vector or bra is a row vector whose elements are the

complex conjugates of the elements of the column vector.

When a normalized set of vectors are mutually orthogonal to each other the set is said to be

orthonormal set of vectors. For example, consider the set {|0>, |1>}. In the {|0>, |1>} basis

|0>, |1> can be represented as,

1 0
|0 >= ( ) ; |1 >= ( )
0 1

And <0|0>=<1|1>= 1 shows the vectors are normalized. Whereas, <0|1>=<1|0>= 0 shows

that the vectors are mutually orthogonal. Hence, they form an orthonormal set of vectors.

Operators:

In quantum theory, dynamical variables like position, momentum, angular momentum, and

energy are called observables. Observables are measured to characterize the quantum state of

a particle. We associate a mathematical entity, called linear operator to describe the

observables. Operators can be represented by matrices in a certain basis. Then the action of

an operator on a vector is reduced to simple matrix multiplication. In an n-dimensional vector

space, operators are represented by n ×n matrices. If we know the action of an operator A on

a basis set it is completely specified in the vector space.

The representation of an operator A in the basis set |ui> is defined by,

A= IAI= (∑𝑖 |𝑢𝑖 >< 𝑢𝑖 |)𝑨(∑𝑗 |𝑢𝑗 >< 𝑢𝑗 |) = ∑𝑖,𝑗 < 𝑢𝑖 |𝑨|𝑢𝑗 > |𝑢𝑖 >< 𝑢𝑗 |

The quantity <ui|A|uj>= Aij is the matrix element of the operator A located at ith row and jth

column in the matrix representing A in the basis {|ui>}. The matrix representation of A is

given by,

The product of a ket |ψ> with a bra <φ|, which is written as |ψ><φ|, is sometimes known as the

outer product. This quantity is an operator. Taking an arbitrary ket |χ> the outer product is

given by,

(|𝜓 >< 𝜑|) |𝜒 > = |𝜓 >< 𝜑|𝜒 >

The outer product |ψ><φ| in a basis is calculated in the following way:

𝑎
|𝜓 >< 𝜑| = ( ) (𝑐 ∗ 𝑎𝑐 ∗ 𝑎𝑑 ∗
𝑑∗ ) = ( )
𝑏 𝑏𝑐 ∗ 𝑏𝑑 ∗

A set of operators that turns out to be of fundamental importance in quantum computation is

known as Pauli operators. The Pauli operators in the {|0>, |1>} basis are given by,

1 0 0 1 0 −𝑖 1 0
𝐼=( ), 𝑋=( ), 𝑌=( ), 𝑍=( )
0 1 1 0 𝑖 0 0 −1
Hermitian and Unitary operator:

Two of the most important operators in the quantum theory are the Hermitian operator and

the unitary operator.

An operator Ầ is said to be a Hermitian operator if

Where Ầ †is the Hermitian adjoint of the operator Ầ given by,

< 𝑎|𝑨† |𝑏 >=< 𝑏|𝑨|𝑎 >∗

An operator is said to be unitary if its adjoint is equal to its inverse. Unitary operators are

often denoted using the symbol U and it is defined as,

UU† = U†U = I

Unitary operators are important because they describe the time evolution of a quantum state.

The Pauli operators are both Hermitian and Unitary.

Projection operator:

An important class of Hermitian operators is the projectors. A projection operator is an

operator that can be formed by writing the outer product using a single ket. That is, given a

state |ψ>, the operator P = |ψ><ψ| is a projection operator. If the state |ψ> is normalized, then

a projection operator is equal to its own square i.e. 𝑃2 = 𝑃.

Suppose W is a m-dimensional vector subspace of the n-dimensional vector space V. Using

the Gram–Schmidt procedure it is possible to construct an orthonormal basis |1>, . . ., |n> for

V such that |1>, . . ., |m> is an orthonormal basis for W. By definition, 𝑃 = ∑𝑚

𝑖=1 |𝑖 >< 𝑖| is

the projector onto the subspace W.

Let us suppose that a system is prepared in the state |ψ>= ∑𝑛𝑖=1 𝑐𝑖|𝑢𝑖 > where the |ui>

constitute an orthonormal basis. To find the probability of finding the ith outcome if a

measurement is made, using the projection operators Pi = |ui><ui | we can write,

Pr(i) = < ψ|𝑃𝑖 |ψ > = |𝑐𝑖 |2

An operator A is said to be positive semidefinite if <ψ|A|ψ> ≥ 0 for all |ψ> ∈Cn

Tensor product:

The tensor product is a way of putting vector spaces together to form larger vector spaces.

This construction is crucial in understanding the quantum mechanics of multiparticle

systems. Suppose V and W are Hilbert spaces of dimension m and n respectively. Then

V⊗W. is an mn dimensional vector space. The elements of V⊗W are linear combinations of

tensor products |v>⊗|w> of elements |v> of V and |w> of W. Note that, {|v>} forms a basis

in V {|w>} forms a basis in W. In particular, if |i> and |j> are orthonormal bases for the

spaces V and W then |i>⊗|j> is a basis for V ⊗W.

𝑎𝑐
𝑎 𝑐 𝑎𝑑
Let us suppose, |α> =( ) |β> =( ) then the tensor product |α> ⊗ |β> = ( 𝑏𝑐 )
𝑏 𝑑
𝑏𝑑
Quantum gates:

Classical computer circuits are constructed with wires and logic gates. The wires are to carry

information and the logic gates perform manipulations of the information, converting it from

one form to another. Analogous to this idea, a quantum computer is built from a quantum

circuit containing wires and elementary quantum gates to carry around and manipulate the

quantum information. In this section, we introduce various quantum gate and illustrate their

action on quantum states.

Single qubit gates:

The common one input classical gate is NOT gate, which converts the bit 0 to 1 and 1 to 0.

Analogous to the classical NOT gate we have the quantum NOT gate, which converts |0> to

|1> and |1> to |0>. Single qubit gates are represented by 2×2 matrices and the only constraint

is that the matrix representing the single qubit gate must be unitary. The NOT operation can

be implemented with the X Pauli matrix.

0 1
𝑋=( )
1 0

Another important single qubit gate is the phase-flip gate which leaves |0> unchanged and

flips the sign of |1> to give −|1>. It is represented by the Pauli Z matrix.

1 0
𝑍= ( )
0 −1

Another single qubit gate is Hadamard gate. It is one of the most useful quantum gates which

turns |0> into (|0> + |1>)/√2 and turns |1> into (|0> - |1>)/√2.

The matrix representation of Hadamard gate is given by,

1 1 1
𝐻= ( )
√2 1 −1
Multiple qubit gate:

In classical computation, most notable multiple bit classical gates are AND, OR, XOR

(exclusive OR), NAND and NOR. Among them, NAND and NOR gate are called the

Universal gate because, any function on bits can be computed with the combination of

NAND gates or NOR gates only. The prototypical multi-qubit quantum logic gate is the

controlled-NOT or CNOT gate, which has two input qubits, known as the control qubit and

the target qubit. The matrix representation of the controlled-NOT, UCN, in the basis {|00>,

|01>, |10>, |11>}, is given by,

1 0 0 0
UCN = (0 1 0 0)
0 0 0 1
0 0 1 0

If the control qubit is set to 0, then the target qubit is left alone. If the control qubit is set to 1,

then the target qubit is flipped. So, the action of the Hadamard gate can be described as,

|00 >→ |00 >; |01 >→ |01 >; |10 >→ |11 >; |11 >→ |10 >.
Circuit diagram of a CNOT gate is shown below:

Where B⊕A denotes addition modulo 2.

There are many interesting quantum gates other than the controlled-NOT. However, in a

sense the controlled-NOT and single qubit gates are the prototypes for all other gates because

any multiple qubit gate may be composed from CNOT and single qubit gates.
Chapter II: Quantum measurement
theory and Density operator
Quantum Measurement Theory:

In classical mechanics, measurement generally has no effect on a system. But measurement

has a profound impact on a quantum mechanical system, as it changes the state of a system

through measurement. Closed quantum systems evolve according to unitary evolution which

is governed by Schrodinger wave equation. But when a measurement is made, an interaction

with the surroundings makes the system no longer closed, and thus the evolution is not

always unitary. In this section, we are going to describe measurement models to extract

information from our quantum systems.

Generalized measurements:

Quantum measurements are described by a collection of measurement operators {Mm}. If a

measurement is made on the state |ψ> of the quantum system then the probability that result

†
m occurs is given by p(m) = < 𝜓|𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 |𝜓 > and the state after measurement is given by,

𝑀𝑚 |𝜓>
|𝜓´ >= †
<𝜓|𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 |𝜓>

The measurement operators satisfy the completeness equation,

†
∑ 𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 = 1
𝑚

Projective measurement:

A special class of measurement is projective measurements or von Neumann measurements.

A projective measurement is described by an observable, M, a Hermitian operator on the state

space of the system being observed. The observable has a spectral decomposition

𝑀 = ∑𝑚 𝑚𝑃𝑚 , where Pm is the projector onto the eigenspace of M with eigenvalue m. The

possible outcomes of the measurement correspond to the eigenvalues, m, of the

corresponding operator. Upon measuring the state |ψ>, the probability of getting result m is

p(m) = < 𝜓|𝑃𝑚 |𝜓 >. The state immediately after the measurement is given by,

𝑃𝑚 |𝜓>
|ψ´> =
√𝑃𝑚

Projective Measurements are special cases of General measurements when the measurement

operators are Hermitian and orthogonal projectors.

Positive operator-valued measure:

A type of measurement that is more general than the projective measurements is known as a

positive operator-valued measure or POVM. It is a special case of the general measurement

formalism, providing a rule describing the measurement statistics, i.e. the respective

probabilities of the different possible measurement outcomes and also a rule describing the

post measurement state of the system.

Suppose a measurement described by measurement operators Mm is performed upon a

quantum system in the state |ψ>. Then the probability of outcome m is given by,

†
p(m) = < 𝜓|𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 |𝜓 >.

†
Suppose we define, 𝐸𝑚 = 𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 .

𝐸𝑚 is a positive operator such that ∑𝑚 𝐸𝑚 = I and 𝑝(𝑚) =< 𝜓|𝐸𝑚 |𝜓 >. Thus, the set of

operators 𝐸𝑚 are sufficient to determine the probabilities of the different measurement

outcomes. The operators 𝐸𝑚 are known as the POVM elements associated with the

measurement. The complete set { 𝐸𝑚 } is known as a POVM.

Density operator:

An alternate formulation of quantum theory is possible using a tool known as the density

operator or density matrix. It is mathematically equivalent to the state vector approach, but it

is much more convenient and acts as a tool for the description of individual subsystems of a

composite quantum system. In this section, we will introduce the density operator, its general

properties and applications.

Suppose a quantum system is in one of the n possible number of states |𝜓𝑖 >, where i is an

index, with respective probabilities 𝑝𝑖 . {𝑝𝑖 , |𝜓𝑖 >} is an ensemble of pure states and density

operator for this pure state is defined as 𝜌𝑖 = |𝜓𝑖 >< 𝜓𝑖 |. The density operator for the entire

system is defined by 𝜌 = ∑𝑖 𝑝𝑖 |𝜓𝑖 >< 𝜓𝑖 |

The expectation value of an operator A can be written in terms of the density operator in an

orthonormal basis |ui> as

<A> = ∑𝑛𝑘,𝑙=1 < 𝑢𝑙 |𝜌|𝑢𝑘 >< 𝑢𝑘 |𝐴|𝑢𝑙 >

= ∑𝑛𝑙=1 < 𝑢𝑙 |𝜌(∑𝑛𝑘=1|𝑢𝑘 >< 𝑢𝑘 |𝐴|𝑢𝑙 >

= ∑𝑛𝑙=1 < 𝑢𝑙 |𝜌𝐴|𝑢𝑙 >

= 𝑇𝑟(𝜌𝐴)

Due to conservation of probability, Tr(ρ)=1.

An operator ρ is a density operator if it satisfies the following three requirements:

• The density operator is Hermitian, meaning ρ =ρ†.

• Tr(ρ)=1.

• ρ is a positive operator, meaning <u|ρ|u> ≥ 0 for any state vector |u>.

Measurements are also easily described in the density operator formulation. Suppose, we

perform a measurement described by measurement operators Mm. If the initial state was

|𝜓𝑖 >, then the probability of getting result m is given by,

†
p(m|i) =< 𝜓𝑖 |𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 |𝜓𝑖 >

†
= 𝑇𝑟(𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 |𝜓𝑖 >< 𝜓𝑖 |)

By the law of total probability, the probability of obtaining result m is given by,

𝑝(𝑚) = ∑𝑖 𝑝(𝑚|𝑖)𝑝𝑖

†
= ∑𝑖 𝑝𝑖 𝑇𝑟(𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 |𝜓𝑖 >< 𝜓𝑖 |)

†
= 𝑇𝑟(𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 𝜌)

In terms of general measurement operators, the state of the system immediately after

†
𝑀𝑚 𝜌𝑀𝑚
measurement is † .
𝑇𝑟(𝑀𝑚 𝑀𝑚 𝜌)

• A mixed state is a classical statistical mixture of two or more states. The state has no

coherences therefore, the off-diagonal terms of the density operator are zero.

• A pure state will have nonzero off-diagonal terms.

• To check whether the density operator is representing a pure state or a mixed state is

to calculate the Tr(𝜌2 ).

Tr(𝜌2 ) = 1,for pure state.

Tr(𝜌2 ) < 1, for mixed state.

Reduced density operator:

A very important application of the density operator is in the characterization of subsystems

of a composite quantum system. Such a description is provided by the reduced density

operator.

Suppose we have physical systems A and B. The complete state of the system contains

information about both subsystems which is described by a density operator 𝜌 𝐴𝐵 . To

implement the partial trace, we compute the trace by summing over the basis states of one

subsystem alone.

The reduced density operator for system A is defined by 𝜌 𝐴 = 𝑇𝑟𝐵 (𝜌 𝐴𝐵 ) where 𝑇𝑟𝐵 is a map

of operators known as the partial trace over system B. The partial trace is defined by,

𝑇𝑟𝐵 (|𝑎1 >< 𝑎2 | ⊗|𝑏1 >< 𝑏2 |)

Where |a1>, |a2> are any two vectors in the state space of A, and |b1> and |b2> are any two

vectors in the state space of B.

Chapter III: Quantum Entanglement
and Quantum Teleportation