INTRODUCTION TO QUANTUM INFORMATION

Quantum information theory deals with the consequences on the manipulation and transmission of information that follow from the use of qubits, quantum bits that is spin ½ particles, instead of classical bits.

The recent theoretical and experimental results have renewed the ineterst in Quantum Mechanics with special focus upon her most mysterious and challenging aspects like entanglement. The latter has changed from being an epistemological riddle to being a physical resource to be used in protocols like

teletransportation, dense coding and quantum cryptography that have no classical analogs.

Purpose of the course is to provide a survey of the basic aspects and techniques of quantum information; it will consist of 30 hours and will unite plenty of guided exercises relative to the following topics:

1.     Basics of Quantum Mechanics

1.1 Qubits and Bloch sphere

1.2 Pure and mixed states

1.3 Composite systems

1.4 Open quantum systems and tendency to equilibrium

2. Entanglement

2.1 Separable and entangled states

2.2 Bell’s inequalities

2.3 Entanglement detection

2.4 Open quantum systems and entanglement

3. Applicazioni

3.1 Dense-coding

3.2 Teletransportation

3.3 Deutsch e Deutsch-Jozsa algorithms

3.4 Quantum cryptography

Reference textbook

F. Benatti, M. Fannes, R. Floreanini, D. Petritis eds.: Quantum Information, Computation and Cryptography,

Lecture Notes in Physics 808, Springer 2010