The no-cloning theorem is one of the fundamental concepts of quantum information theory. It tells us that no general quantum state can be perfectly replicated. In this thesis we introduce the notion of imperfect cloning, and define the properties of the universal cloning machine. Furthermore, we construct an ansatz of how our universal cloning machine should perform as to produce two imperfect clones from one input qubit. We find an optimal fidelity of 5/6 for our universal cloning machine. We then reevaluate our ansatz and construct a class of unitary transformations such that an optimal fidelity is always achieved. Lastly, we present an overview of some applications of imperfect quantum cloning in the field of quantum information.

Neste trabalho estudamos as propriedades de emaranhamento dos estados de dois quasifótons de frequências diferentes, fazendo a aproximação de que o vácuo de quasifótons é igual ao vácuo de fótons, no caso em que não temos campo externo algum e no caso da presença de um campo magnético externo, constante e homogêneo. Estudamos também as propriedades de emaranhamento do próprio vácuo de quasifótons e dos estados de dois quasifótons no caso monocromático, sem campo externo e com o vácuo de quasifótons levado em conta exatamente. / In this work we study the properties of entanglement of the states of two quasi-photons of different frequencies, considering the approximation that the quasi-photon\'s vacuum is equal the photon\'s vacuum, in the case where we have no external field and in the case where we have an external, constant and homogeneous magnetic field. We study also the properties of entanglement of the quasi-photon\'s vacuum and of the states of two quasi-photons in the monochromatic case, without external field and with the quasi-photon\'s vacuum considered exactly.

O papel das medidas de complexidade tem se tornado cada vez mais claro na extensão da compreensão que se tem sobre sistemas complexos. Todavia, apesar do grande número de medidas propostas para capturar tais características em sistemas clássicos, para sistemas quânticos somente vê-se extensões da complexidade algorítmica de Kolmogorov. Assim, propõe-se neste trabalho a extensão de três medidas de complexidade pelo uso do ferramental da teoria da informação quântica para torná-las capazes de compreender a quantificação da complexidade de estados quânticos. Resultados mostram que alguns fenômenos observados em sistemas complexos clássicos estão presentes em estados bipartite e tripartite de qubits e estão intimamente ligados com a presença de entrelaçamento nos mesmos. Tanto comprovação de conceitos já conhecidos como indícios de novos fenômenos foram observados, ambos com possíveis aplicações tecnológicas. / The role of complexity measures has become increasingly clear on the extent of understanding we have of complex systems. However, despite the large number of measures proposed to capture these characteristics in classical systems, to quantum systems there are only extensions of the Kolmogorov\'s algorithmic complexity. Thus, this work proposes the extension of three measures of complexity by using the tools of quantum information theory to make them able to understand the quantification of the complexity of quantum states. Results show that some phenomena observed in classical complex systems are present in bipartite and tripartite states of qubits and are closely linked with the presence of entanglement in them. Both proof of known concepts as signs of new phenomena were observed, with possible technological applications.

Apresentamos neste trabalho a primeira verificação experimental de emaranhamento entre os feixes, sinal, complementar e bombeio refletido, produzidos pelo Oscilador Paramétrico Ótico (OPO) acima do limiar. Utilizando o critério de soma de variâncias de van Loock e Furusawa, obtivemos resultados que apontam a existência de emaranhamento tripartite em nosso sistema, evidenciado através da aplicação do critério de Positividade sob Transposição Parcial de Peres-Simon (PPT). A observação desse efeito, previsto em 2006, encontrou dificuldades relacionadas a existência de um ruído clássico espúrio, inserido pelo cristal não-linear. Apresentamos, um modelo teórico para esse ruído que leva em consideração pequenas flutuações na permissividade dielétrica do cristal, associadas às vibrações da rede. Em seguida, mostramos como conseguimos controlar e reduzir o excesso de ruído de modo a obter condições que permitiram à observação do emaranhamento tripartite. / We present in this work the first experimental verification of entanglement between the, signal, idler and reflected pump beams, generated by an Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) above the threshold. Using the criterion of sum of variances, proposed by van Loock and Furusawa, we obtained results that indicate the existence of tripartite entanglement in our system. That is confirmed by applying the criterion of positivity under partial transposition by Peres-Simon (PPT). The observation of this effect, predicted in 2006, faced difficulties related to the existence of a spurious classical noise, introduced by the nonlinear crystal. We have also presented a theoretical model for this that takes into account small fluctuations in the dielectric permittivity of the crystal, associated with vibrations of its lattice. We show how to control and reduce the excess noise in order to achieve conditions for the observation of tripartite entanglement.

This thesis studies continuous variable mixed states with the aim of better understanding the fundamental behaviour of quantum correlations in such states, as well as searching for applications of these correlations. I first investigate the interesting phenomenon of discord increase under local loss and explain the behaviour by considering the non-orthogonality of quantum states. I then explore the counter-intuitive result where entanglement can be created by a passive optical beamsplitter, even if the input states are classical, as long as the input states are part of a larger globally nonclassical system. This result emphasises the importance of global correlations in a quantum state, and I propose an application of this protocol in the form of quantum dense coding. Finally, I develop a quantum digital signature protocol that can be described entirely using the continuous variable formalism. Quantum digital signatures provide a method to ensure the integrity and provenance of a message using quantum states. They follow a similar method to quantum key distribution (QKD), but require less post-processing, which means they can sometimes be implemented over channels that are inappropriate for QKD. The method I propose uses homodyne measurement to verify the signature, unlike previous protocols that use single photon detection. The single photon detection of previous methods is designed to give unambiguous results about the signature, but this comes at the cost of getting no information much of the time. Using homodyne detection has the advantage of giving results all the time, but this means that measurement results always have some ambiguity. I show that, even with this ambiguity, the signature protocol based on homodyne measurement outperforms previous protocols, with the advantage enhanced when technical considerations are included. Therefore this represents an interesting new direction in the search for a practical quantum digital signature scheme.

Currently, there is interest in the development of molecular-scale devices for use in quantum information processing (QIP). With this application in mind, physical studies on antiferromagnetically coupled molecular wheels [Cr7MF3(Etglu)(O2CtBu)15(phpy)], where M is a divalent metal cation (M = Mn2+, Zn2+, Ni2+) have been pursued. The heterometallic wheels contain an octagon of metal centres, which are bridged by fluoride ions, pivalate groups and a chiral N-ethyl-D-glutamine molecule which is penta-deprotonated and bound to the metal sites through all available O-donors. They are deep purple in colour and they have been named purple-Cr7M. There is antiferromagnetic coupling between adjacent metal centres, J » -8 cm-1, resulting in a non-zero net spin ground state. The spin-Hamiltonian parameters of this family have been determined.At the heterometal site of purple-Cr7M wheels there is a terminal ligand which can be substituted for a variety of N-donor organic ligands. A series of bidentate N-donor linkers has been used to link Cr7Ni wheels (each wheel Seff = 1/2) to create prototype two-qubit systems. Multi-frequency EPR spectroscopy and SQUID magnetometry has been used to extract the spin-Hamiltonian parameters of this family. It has been shown that the single wheels can be linked together electronically as well as chemically. It has been found that for the unsaturated linkers, there is a weaker interaction between Cr7Ni wheels when longer linkers are used. The strength of interaction is smaller for the saturated linkers than for the unsaturated linkers.The formation of 'green'-Cr7M wheels is different, being templated around a cation. Two new types of wheels have been studied: [tBuCONHC6H12NH2C6H12NHCOtBu][Cr7M2+F8(O2CtBu)16] and [Cs?Cr7MF8(O2CtBu)16]·0.5MeCN (where, M = Mn2+, Zn2+, Ni2+), where the former is templated around a long dialkylammonium group and the latter around a caesium cation. The effect of the templating cation on spectroscopic properties has been determined.Physical studies on a family of antiferromagnetically-coupled homometallic clusters have been pursued. They consist of cyclic arrays of homometallic Cr3+ ions in either a octametallic wheel or hexametallic horseshoes. The horseshoes have the general formula: [CrxFx+5L2x-2]n3- (where L = carboxylate). Cr3+ centres are bridged by pivalate groups and fluorides, while Cr3+ centres at the ends of the chain have terminal fluorides completing their coordination sphere. These terminal fluoride groups are labile enough to be substituted, e.g. [EtNH2][Cr6F7(O2CtBu)10(acac)2] is the product of a substitution reaction with acetylacetone.

A mix of physics, mathematics, and computer science, the study of quantum information seeks to understand and utilize the information that can be held in the state of a quantum system. Quantum cryptography is then the study of various cryptographic protocols on the information in a quantum system. One of the goals we may have is to verify the integrity of quantum data, a process called quantum message authentication. In this thesis, we consider two quantum message authentication schemes, the Clifford code and the trap code. While both of these codes have been previously proven secure, they have not been proven secure in the simulator model, with an efficient simulation. We offer a new class of simulator that is efficient, so long as the adversary is efficient, and show that both of these codes can be proven secure using the efficient simulator. The efficiency of the simulator is typically a crucial requirement for a composable notion of security. The main results of this thesis have been accepted to appear in the Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Information Theoretic Security (ICITS 2016).

フランス国リヨン高等師範学校との共同学位プログラムによる学位 / 京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第23449号 / 理博第4743号 / 新制||理||1680(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科数学・数理解析専攻 / (主査)教授 COLLINS Benoit Vincent Pierre, 教授 泉 正己, 教授 日野 正訓 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Quantum computers have seen rapid development over the last two decades. Despite this, they are not yet scalable or fault-tolerant (i.e. we cannot address arbitrarily many error-corrected qubits). Therefore, improvements that include consideration of the underlying physics are paramount. To do this, we must reduce existing errors and understand how algorithms perform without error correction. In this dissertation, we provide contributions toward these goals. We organize these efforts into three groups. Firstly, we focus on quantum control. We introduce a novel scheme for performing entangling gates on superconducting qubits. We create fast, high-fidelity entangling operations and single-qubit gates to implement arbitrary quantum operations. Then, we implement entangling gates on real transmon qubits. Finally, we develop new techniques for entangling gates on spin qubits. In total, we improve low-level device performance with high-fidelity entangling operations. Secondly, we focus on quantum simulation algorithms. First, we apply error mitigation techniques to a quantum simulation algorithm while simultaneously performing device characterization. Then we take advantage of known symmetries of the input Hamiltonian to improve the same algorithm. Then, we demonstrate that this reduces resources compared to other approaches in the presence of noise. Then we compare this technique with state-of-the-art approaches. Then, we improve this algorithm with approaches from quantum control. Finally, we develop a novel algorithm to simulate spin chains on a quantum processor with improved resources compared to other techniques. In total, we improve quantum simulation algorithms, with the aim of better utilizing current devices. Thirdly, we consider the ADAPT-VQE algorithm, which is used to construct quantum circuits for preparing trial states in quantum simulation. In total, we improve gate counts for the algorithm, improve a separate algorithm by utilizing the gradient criterion, and leverage the repeating structure of an input Hamiltonian to improve performance. Finally, we provide a deeper understanding of ADAPT-VQE and demonstrate its robustness to scaling issues of competing algorithms. In total, we improve the algorithm and its applicability. Thus, we improve quantum simulation algorithms that can be run in the near term. / Doctor of Philosophy / The computers that we interact with every day rely on the processing of bits, represented as 1's or 0's. The rules that govern how they operate mostly rely on classical physics (i.e. discovered before quantum physics), which does not include any quantum effects. If we instead allow for quantum rules and quantum bits ("qubits"'), new types of algorithms are possible. That is to say, quantum computers can do some things more efficiently than classical computers. As such, there is a massive effort to build these devices. Because these devices are so delicate and in their early stages, this requires an understanding of the algorithm and the physical device performing it. Therefore, improving the overall performance requires taking high and low-level aspects of this design into consideration. In this dissertation, we provide three groups of contributions to achieving this goal. In the first group, we improve the device performance by considering how operations are performed on qubits, primarily in terms of producing quantum operations that have no classical analog. In the second group, we improve the simulation of quantum systems on quantum devices with a focus on how existing imperfections in the device impact the results. In the third group, we make improvements to an algorithm used to simulate quantum systems like molecules, while also developing a deeper understanding of how the algorithm functions. In each of these parts, we develop novel techniques to improve device and algorithm performance, contributing to the applicability and utility of current and future quantum devices.

<p dir="ltr">This thesis is about the preparation and simulation for ground states of topological of matter. Particularly, I focus on arbitrary ground states, which is crucial in quantum memory and error correction coding.</p>