Scalable Simulation of Quantum Measurement Process with Quantum Computers

TL;DR

This paper introduces scalable quantum models and circuits for simulating the quantum measurement process, enabling exploration of the quantum-to-classical boundary and applications in quantum computing and metrology.

Contribution

The paper presents novel scalable qubit models and explicit quantum circuits for simulating quantum measurements on near-term quantum computers.

Findings

Models can generate Schrödinger cat-like states.

Simulations outperform classical computers in scalability.

Potential applications in quantum computing and metrology.

Abstract

Recent development in quantum information sciences and technologies, especially building programmable quantum computers, provide us new opportunities to study fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics. We propose qubit models to emulate the quantum measurement process, in which the quantum information of a qubit is mapped to a collection of qubits acting as the measurement device. One model is motivated by single-photon detection and the other by spin measurement. Both models are scalable to generate Schr\"{o}dinger cat-like state, and their corresponding quantum circuits are shown explicitly. Large-scale simulations could be realized in near-term quantum computers, while classical computers cannot perform the same task efficiently. Due to the scalability of the models, such simulations can help explore the quantum-to-classical boundary, if exists, in the quantum measurement problem. Besides, our protocol to generate cat states may have important applications in quantum computing and metrology.