Experimental Quantum Computing to Solve Systems of Linear Equations
Abstract
Solving linear systems of equations is ubiquitous in all areas of science and engineering. With rapidly growing data sets, such a task can be intractable for classical computers, as the best known classical algorithms require a time proportional to the number of variables N. A recently proposed quantum algorithm shows that quantum computers could solve linear systems in a time scale of order log(N), giving an exponential speedup over classical computers. Here we realize the simplest instance of this algorithm, solving 2*2 linear equations for various input vectors on a quantum computer. We use four quantum bits and four controlled logic gates to implement every subroutine required, demonstrating the working principle of this algorithm.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1302.4310,
title = {Experimental Quantum Computing to Solve Systems of Linear Equations},
author = {X. -D. Cai and Christian Weedbrook and Z. -E. Su and M. -C. Chen and Mile Gu and M. -J. Zhu and L. Li and N. -L. Liu and Chao-Yang Lu and Jian-Wei Pan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.4310},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
accepted version, to appear in Physical Review Letters