Outline:

In this module students will form an appreciation of the field of quantum information, concerning both the basic theoretical notions of quantum information and entanglement, as well as recent developments in the practical implementation of quantum protocols. Quantum teleportation, quantum key distribution, quantum search and factoring algorithms will all be covered.

Aims:

The course aims to:

provide a comprehensive introduction to the area of quantum information science;
	acquaint the student with the practical applications and importance of some basic notions of quantum physics such as quantum two state systems (qubits), entanglement and decoherence;
	train physics students to think as information scientists, and train computer science/mathematics students to think as physicists;
	arm a student with the basic concepts, mathematical tools and the knowledge of state-of-the-art experiments in quantum computation & communication to enable him/her embark on a research degree in the area.
Teaching and Learning Methodology:

This course is delivered via weekly lectures supplemented by a series of workshops and additional discussion.

In addition to timetabled lecture hours, it is expected that students engage in self-study in order to master the material. This can take the form, for example, of practicing example questions and further reading in textbooks and online.

Indicative Topics:

Background [3]: The qubit and its physical realization; Bloch sphere; Single qubit operations and measurements; qudits.
	Quantum Cryptography [3]: The BB84 quantum key distribution protocol; elementary discussion of security; physical implementations; Quantum no-cloning.
	Quantum Entanglement [8]: State space of two qubits; Entangled states; Bell’s inequality; Entanglement based cryptography; Quantum Dense Coding; Quantum Teleportation; Entanglement Swapping; Polarization entangled photons & implementations; von-Neumann entropy; Quantification of pure state entanglement and discussion of mixed state entanglement.
	Quantum Computation [8]: Tensor product structure of the state space of many qubits; Discussion of the power of quantum computers; Quantum logic gates and circuits; Universal quantum gates; Illustrative quantum algorithms; Quantum Fourier Transform; Phase Estimation; Shor’s algorithm; Grover’s algorithm.
	Decoherence & Quantum Error Correction [4]: Decoherence; Errors in quantum computation & communication; Quantum error correcting codes; Elementary discussion of entanglement concentration & distillation.
	Physical Realization of Quantum Computers [4]: Ion trap quantum computers; other implementations.