The quantum challenge to computer science

ABSTRACT

Information is physical: the laws which govern its encoding, processing and communication are bound by those of its unavoidably physical embodiment. In today's informatics, information obeys the laws of Newton's and Maxwell's classical physics: this assertion holds all the way from commercial computers down to (up to?) their most abstract models, e.g. Turing machines and lambda-calculus. Today's computation and communication are classical. Research in quantum information processing and communication was born some twenty five years ago, as a child of two major scientific achievements of the 20th century, namely quantum physics and information sciences. The driving force of this interdisciplinary research is that of looking for the consequences of having information encoding, computation and communication based upon the laws of quantum physics, i.e. the ultimate knowledge that we have, today, of the foreign world of elementary particles, as described by quantum mechanics. Breakthroughs in cryptography, communications, information theory, algorithmics and, more recently, in abstract computational models, programming languages and semantics frameworks, have shown that this transplantation of information from classical to quantum has far reaching consequences, both quantitative and qualitative, and opens new avenues for research within the foundations of computer science.From a computer scientist's point of view, which is my point of view, I will explain the basics, survey the main achievements, and outline the current hot topics and major challenges of this promising and stimulating research. I will not assume any prior knowledge in quantum mechanics from the audience.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  F. Theory of Computation
  F.0 GENERAL

General Terms:
Algorithms, Security, Theory

Keywords:
quantum information processing and communication