Classical emulation of a quantum computer

TL;DR

This paper presents a classical method to emulate a universal quantum computer using analog signals and electronic circuits, effectively replicating quantum states and operations without quantum hardware.

Contribution

It introduces a novel classical emulation approach for quantum computing using analog signals and simple electronic circuits, enabling full Hilbert space and gate operation simulation.

Findings

Prototype system successfully emulates quantum states and gates

Classical signals can represent complex quantum superpositions

Emulation approach is programmable and scalable

Abstract

This paper describes a novel approach to emulate a universal quantum computer with a wholly classical system, one that uses a signal of bounded duration and amplitude to represent an arbitrary quantum state. The signal may be of any modality (e.g. acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) but this paper will focus on electronic signals. Individual qubits are represented by in-phase and quadrature sinusoidal signals, while unitary gate operations are performed using simple analog electronic circuit devices. In this manner, the Hilbert space structure of a multi-qubit quantum state, as well as a universal set of gate operations, may be fully emulated classically. Results from a programmable prototype system are presented and discussed.