Quantum computer solves problem without running program

2/23/2006 2:44:27 AM - Boing Boing

Cory Doctorow: A quantum computer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has solved a problem without running the actual problem -- one of the weird-ass outcomes of building and running a quantum computer. Reportedly, this particular effect can't scale up much beyond a very simple problem, but the people responsible indicate that there are similar effects that might be usable at larger scales:

Utilizing two coupled optical interferometers, nested within a third, Kwiat's team succeeded in counterfactually searching a four-element database using Grover's quantum search algorithm. "By placing our photon in a quantum superposition of running and not running the search algorithm, we obtained information about the answer even when the photon did not run the search algorithm," said graduate student Onur Hosten, lead author of the Nature paper. "We also showed theoretically how to obtain the answer without ever running the algorithm, by using a 'chained Zeno' effect."

Through clever use of beam splitters and both constructive and destructive interference, the researchers can put each photon in a superposition of taking two paths. Although a photon can occupy multiple places simultaneously, it can only make an actual appearance at one location. Its presence defines its path, and that can, in a very strange way, negate the need for the search algorithm to run.

"In a sense, it is the possibility that the algorithm could run which prevents the algorithm from running," Kwiat said. "That is at the heart of quantum interrogation schemes, and to my mind, quantum mechanics doesn't get any more mysterious than this."