2019/07/29 by Kuan Zhang, Jayne Thompson, Xiang Zhang +7
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Algorithm #Computation #Computer science #Ion #Modular design #Physics #Programming language #Quantum #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum computer #Quantum mechanics #physics.atom-ph #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12643-2
published as Nature Communications 10, 4692 (2019) · 6 pages, 4 figures (7 pages, 4 figures, and 6 tables for supplementary information)
arxiv created 2019/07/29 · openalex publication_date 2019/10/16 · arxiv updated 2020/01/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Modern computation relies crucially on modular architectures, breaking a complex algorithm into self-contained subroutines. A client can then call upon a remote server to implement parts of the computation independently via an application programming interface (API). Present APIs relay only classical information. Here we implement a quantum API that enables a client to estimate the absolute value of the trace of a server-provided unitary operation [Formula: see text]. We demonstrate that the algorithm functions correctly irrespective of what unitary [Formula: see text] the server implements or how the server specifically realizes [Formula: see text]. Our experiment involves pioneering techniques to coherently swap qubits encoded within the motional states of a trapped [Formula: see text] ion, controlled on its hyperfine state. This constitutes the first demonstration of modular computation in the quantum regime, providing a step towards scalable, parallelization of quantum computation.