Deterministic Event-based Simulation of Universal Quantum Computation

Abstract

Summary. We demonstrate that locally connected networks of classical processing units that have primitive learning capabilities can be used to perform a deterministic, event-based simulation of universal quantum computation. The new simulation method is applied to implement Shor 's factoring algorithm. IntroductionThe basic ideas of quantum computation were formulated more than twenty years ago [1,2]. Ten years ago DiVincenzo has proven that the CNOT gate and single-qubit operations constitute a set of gates that can be used to construct a universal quantum computer [3]. This statement is equivalent to the one that a digital classical computer can be constructed by means of NAND gates only. Conventional computers can simulate the physical behavior of quantum computer hardware by solving the (time-dependent) Schrödinger equation [4,5]. However, the idea of building a quantum computer has lead to many advances in nanotechnology, making it possible to control individual ions, atoms, photons and the like and these single events cannot be described by quantum theory. In this paper we demonstrate how a quantum computer can be built from locally-connected networks of processing units with a primitive learning capability that deterministically generate events with frequencies that agree with the corresponding quantum mechanical probabilities.