Quantum Entanglement and Quantum Computational Algorithms

The existence of entangled quantum states gives extra power to quantum computers over their classical counterparts. Quantum entanglement shows up qualitatively at the level of two qubits. We show that if no entanglement is envolved then whatever one can do with qubits can also be done with classical optical systems. We demonstrate that the one- and the two-bit Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm does not require entanglement and can be mapped onto a classical optical scheme. It is only for three and more input bits that the DJ algorithm requires the implementation of entangling transformations and in these cases it is impossible to implement this algorithm classically.