Quantum computation with indefinite causal structures

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Araújo, Mateus, Guérin, Philippe Allard, Baumeler, Ämin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2017
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author Araújo, Mateus
Guérin, Philippe Allard
Baumeler, Ämin
author_facet Araújo, Mateus
Guérin, Philippe Allard
Baumeler, Ämin
contents One way to study the physical plausibility of closed timelike curves (CTCs) is to examine their computational power. This has been done for Deutschian CTCs (D-CTCs) and post-selection CTCs (P-CTCs), with the result that they allow for the efficient solution of problems in PSPACE and PP, respectively. Since these are extremely powerful complexity classes, which are not expected to be solvable in reality, this can be taken as evidence that these models for CTCs are pathological. This problem is closely related to the nonlinearity of this models, which also allows for example cloning quantum states, in the case of D-CTCs, or distinguishing non-orthogonal quantum states, in the case of P-CTCs. In contrast, the process matrix formalism allows one to model indefinite causal structures in a linear way, getting rid of these effects, and raising the possibility that its computational power is rather tame. In this paper we show that process matrices correspond to a linear particular case of P-CTCs, and therefore that its computational power is upperbounded by that of PP. We show, furthermore, a family of processes that can violate causal inequalities but nevertheless can be simulated by a causally ordered quantum circuit with only a constant overhead, showing that indefinite causality is not necessarily hard to simulate.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1706_09854
institution arXiv
publishDate 2017
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantum computation with indefinite causal structures
Araújo, Mateus
Guérin, Philippe Allard
Baumeler, Ämin
Quantum Physics
Computational Complexity
One way to study the physical plausibility of closed timelike curves (CTCs) is to examine their computational power. This has been done for Deutschian CTCs (D-CTCs) and post-selection CTCs (P-CTCs), with the result that they allow for the efficient solution of problems in PSPACE and PP, respectively. Since these are extremely powerful complexity classes, which are not expected to be solvable in reality, this can be taken as evidence that these models for CTCs are pathological. This problem is closely related to the nonlinearity of this models, which also allows for example cloning quantum states, in the case of D-CTCs, or distinguishing non-orthogonal quantum states, in the case of P-CTCs. In contrast, the process matrix formalism allows one to model indefinite causal structures in a linear way, getting rid of these effects, and raising the possibility that its computational power is rather tame. In this paper we show that process matrices correspond to a linear particular case of P-CTCs, and therefore that its computational power is upperbounded by that of PP. We show, furthermore, a family of processes that can violate causal inequalities but nevertheless can be simulated by a causally ordered quantum circuit with only a constant overhead, showing that indefinite causality is not necessarily hard to simulate.
title Quantum computation with indefinite causal structures
topic Quantum Physics
Computational Complexity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.09854