Introduction to quantum world

Quantum physics relates to laws governing matter at the fundamental level.

The story of what everything in the physical world made of is nothing new.
Our understanding of atom dates back to 1803 when Dalton postulated his
idea that everything in the physical world is made of atoms. In the course of
the next century humanity had discovered electrons, nucleus, neutrons and
even neutrinos. As we went deeper and deeper to the atomic level classical
physics failed to explain the observations made. Quantum mechanics
evolved to understand the world of atoms, electrons and quanta of light.

One place where classical physics failed is to explain the blackbody

radiation. According to classical physics as you increase the intensity of the
radiation the frequency increases. Its like saying more light you put more
energy you get.
According to classical physics the amount of energy in a radiation is
proportional to the intensity of the radiation. If that energy had to do some
work we simply had to increase the intensity. However the observations
made did not confirm this law. It was found that it is not the intensity that
determines energy level but frequency of light/radiation that determined
how much energy is there and how much work you can do. In addition the
amount of energy occurred in discreet lumps or packets or bags or quanta
(origin of the word quantum). It is like energy occurred in "bags" (quanta).
You can have one "bag" of energy, two "bags", three "bags" and so on. You
cannot have 0.5 bags, 3.8 bags, 55.3 bags. Each bag is a photon. A beam of
light is made of trillions and trillions of such bags. This was revolutionary.
Till then the understanding was that light is a wave. Now it was confirmed
that light behaves like a particle. (a bag is like a particle just like a marble or a
ball). Remember light behaves like a particle when it is interacting with
matter while it behaves like a wave when it is propagating.

The quantum nature of light was for the 1st time demonstrated by the
famous photo-electric effect of Einstein. When you shine a beam of light on
metal surface you could conduct electricity. Further the amount of electricity
(energy) you could get at any time depends not on the intensity of the light
but the frequency of light. In other words, the frequency of light determined
the energy of light which in turn determined its ability to eject/excite an
electron from its place. Higher the energy of packets (of light) electrons will
be ejected with more force. This is what differentiates conductors, semi-
conductors, insulators. The amount of energy required to excite an electron
is very high in case of insulator and relatively lower in semi-conductors. So
with Plank's understanding of quantum nature of light and Einstein's photo-
electric effect quantum physics took birth and ever since our understanding
of the laws governing the quantum world has improved.

Now that it was sealed light behaved like particles, there was another place
where the classical physical failed. You must have studied in your school
books about double-slit experiment. Beam a flash of light and place 2 slits
(small openings) and observe the pattern the light makes on a screen. You
can see alternate light and dark lines (or bands) as shown in the figure
below. This is what you have heard as interference pattern.

However, the confusion was if light were to be particles the interference

pattern on the screen should look like the Fig 2. But pattern in the Fig 3 was
what was observed.
 Figure 2

Figure 3

Now consider this case instead of a beam of light (trillions and trillions of
photons) you had some way to emit a single photon. Where would find the
photon on the screen. You cannot predict the position of this photon until
you measure it. It follows the prediction is based on probability of the
photon to take this path or that path. The photon could be anywhere on the
screen. Only that the chance of finding a photon in middle varied with the
chance of finding it at the ends (see figure below). This ability of the photon
to be anywhere at the same time is called superposition. Superposition is the
principle behind quantum computers. We will get to it in a bit.
It follows photons behaved probabilistically. You cannot be certain where
the photon would be unless you see it on the screen. i.e. Unless you measure
the property of a photon (its position in this case) you cannot be sure about
anything about it. In other words, the photon could be everywhere at the
same time. Only its probability to be here or there changed. In short
quantum world is different. It is probabilistic. It is not like macro-world we
are familiar with. In the macro world newton's laws can be applied to
predict the behaviour of any object. This is not so in the quantum world.
Further this applies to all properties of photons not just the path it takes.
Eg: polarization states, energy, momentum (its properties are not important
to future civil servant)
Not only that this applies to all fundamental particles be it photon, electron,
quark, neutrino anything you have heard of. In short, all fundamental
particles at this level behave in probabilistic ways and follow probabilistic
laws.
In mid-1920s Schrodinger in his famous wave equation gave laws to explain
behaviour of objects in the quantum world. Schrodinger's equation is akin to
newton's laws but that in the quantum world. This was yet another
landmark.
With this lets try to understand something you have often heard of,
quantum entanglement. In the above example where you beamed a flash of
light you were throwing trillions and trillions of photons together. Consider
a case where you have somehow found a way to throw say 1000 photons.
What do you think the interference pattern will be? You are right it’s the
same. Alternate dark and light bands as we saw above.
Consider a small twist in this. Say out of the 1000 photons I had some way
to hold 1 of the 1000 photons and let go of other 999. If I want to predict
the position of the last photon, I have to know where on the screen 999
photons fell. (because 1000 photons put together have to make the same
interference pattern) So it means that where the last photon would hit
depends on where the 1st photon or 5th photon or 999th photon fell. So
these photons are somehow correlated to each other. They are talking to
each other to form an interference pattern. This property of these photons
is called entanglement. In short a stream of photons will form an
interference pattern and in order to do so the 1st photon and last photon
had to somehow communicate. Now say you had a stream of photons you
ejected all of them except the last one. The last one you took and sent it on
a rocket to mars. Now in mars this photon should behave in accordance
with its agreement with the 1st photon. This is called entanglement. Weird
isn't it? That’s why Einstein called it 'spooky action at a distance'.
Entanglement is very important in quantum cryptography and quantum
communication about which we will come in a bit.

One last thing you should know to appreciate the quantum world is the
'uncertainty principle'. According to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle you
cannot measure two related characteristics of a quantum particle with
exactness. Take for instance you want to know the velocity and position of a
cricket ball that is hit for a six. You measure the force which the bat hit the
ball you can find out acceleration and depending on its velocity you can find
out the position of the ball at any moment in time. But if you take an
electron or photon and try to measure its velocity and position with
exactness you would fail. You can measure only one with accuracy and the
moment you measure one with exactness, the accuracy with which you can
measure the other takes a hit. This has very important application in next-
 gen sensing and measurement. We will talk about it. Phew so much for
basics of quantum world. One thing should be very clear by now. Objects in
the quantum world behave very differently. An understanding of the
quantum world and ability to utilize principles of the quantum world helps
us develop useful things which is what quantum technology is all about.

Quantum Technologies: Phase1 and Phase 2

Quantum technology is nothing new. The computer revolution owes its success to
transistors which is due to our understanding of the behaviour of electrons. Lasers
that has wide-ranging applications owes its success to our understanding of the
quantum world. Novel materials like superconductors, SQUIDs, Bose Einstein
condensates all owe their origin to principles in the quantum world. These
technologies depended on our understanding of few principles in the quantum
world. We called this field of study quantum mechanics (working of the quantum
world)
This is phase 1 of quantum technologies. This phase mere used the principles of
quantum mechanics to build useful products. In addition, there are many principles
in the quantum world about which we know but we had no systems to
demonstrate them or manifest them. Quantum superposition, quantum
entanglement and squeezed states are examples of these principles. In the 1980s,
scientists built systems to demonstrate/manifest these principles of quantum world
for which they were conferred upon Nobel Prize in 2012. The ability to build these
systems marks phase 2 of quantum technologies. While experiments and systems
were designed in the 1980s it required another 30 years for these systems to ripe to
have any appreciable application. This is why you hear so much about quantum
technologies in the recent times. Quantum computers, quantum cryptography,
quantum sensing and quantum communication are some of the things that are at
the frontier of next-gen sensing, computing, communication etc. This is why we
aptly call it a frontier technology.
Now let us understand what these principles are and how we use them to build
useful things. In other words what are these quantum principles and corresponding
technologies.

Superposition and Quantum computing

Fundamental particles have a unique ability to be in all possible states at the same
time. This ability is called the ability to be in composite states. This is called
superposition. This is the principle you use to build quantum computers.

Let us understand this with an example. Consider a batsman hitting the ball in a
game of cricket. When a batman hits the ball one can calculate the position and
velocity of the ball at any point of time if one knew the swing of the bat (how hard
the batsman hit the ball) and how heavy the bat is. The ball can be in only one
position at any point in time. This is what Newton's laws help us do. Besides
macroworld is a 2-state system. A light can be on or off, a cat can be dead or alive,
you can be here or there. This is fancily called a 2-state system. Either you can be
this or that, either an object is there or not, either there is or there is not. They cant
be both. You cant be here and there at the same time. A light cannot be on and off
at the same time. A cat cannot be dead and alive at the same time.

It may surprise you that this is not true with particles in the quantum world.
Photons, electrons, bosons, neutrinos etc don’t work this way. They can have all
possible existence at the same time. Hypothetically if you consider a photon to be
a ball of colour, red or blue. It can be red and blue and everything in between at
the same time. (remember it is only hypothetical) And this is true of all
fundamental particles. Not only that it true of all the properties of all fundamental
particles.

To appreciate this better lets do a thought experiment. Say you beam a flash of
light onto a screen. Our task is to try tracing the path of one photon before it hit
the screen. (flash of light will have trillions and trillions of photons, our concern is
only one photon and its path)
Every photon before being measured can travel all paths at the same time. This
ability of every photon to travel all possible paths at the same time is called
superposition.
One caution is this ability is true only for photon before you measure its path.
The moment you measure the path it is forced to take one or the other path.
Which path the photon takes is determined by probability. This means the
chance of finding a photon at this place or that varies. See the figure to appreciate
this. The chance of finding the photon at the middle of the screen is highest and at
the ends is lowest. Further there is no way of knowing which path a photon traced.
It followed all paths at the same time.
To cut the long story short superposition is the characteristic of objects in the
quantum world to exist in multiple or composite states at the same time. Further
this applies to any and all properties of photon not just the path. These could be
photon's energy level, polarization state etc. In addition, the characteristic of
superposition applies to all particles in the quantum world. All particles in the
Standard Model. It could be electrons, neutrinos, boson, photon and anything and
everything. This property is what we use to build quantum computers.

Today's computers work using a 2-state system. A bit is a 2-state system. It can
represent either 0 or 1. All information in today's computers is fed in, processed,
stored and transmitted using bits. This 2-state system or bit system is essentially a
transistor. (transistor is nothing but a light bulb). It is the number of bits or
number of transistors that decided the ability of the computer. More number of
bits more powerful your computer is. (you have heard of 32-bit, 64-bit etc) . This is
because with every bit there is an exponential increase in the number of states. A
1-bit computer can have 2 states, 0 or 1. A 2-bit computer can hold 4 states
00,01,10 and 11. A 3-bit can hold 8 states (000,001,010,011,100,110,101 and 111).
Similarly, a N-bit computer can hold 2^N states. This is what decides how your
powerful your computer is.

While a computer with higher number of bits processes more information at the
same time (more powerful) it does it very inefficiently. Any computer essentially
does what is called as an Instruct-Fetch-Execute cycle. It simply means a computer
(its CPU or processor) takes instruction (program), takes data on which the
instruction is applied and executes the result. Everything your computer does be it
solving a complex problem or compressing a video or describing a picture (AI
systems) or playing music it performs Instruct-Fetch-Execute cycle at the
fundamental level. Only problem is it performs Instruct-Fetch-Execute cycle one
at a time. The thing that makes conventional computers fast is that it performs
many such cycles at a time in parallel as powerful processors have many
transistors/bits.

Quantum computer on the other hand is not a 2-state system. It is built using the
superposition principle we learnt in the last para. The ability of particles in the
quantum world to exist in composite states (superposition)makes it an N-state
system. If we can build a computer based on bits that can exist in multiple states at
the same time the processing ability just explodes. These bits are what are called
qubits. In short a qubit is a multi-state bit. It can be used to represent both 0 and
1 in a qubit. Remember it is the state that represents information. 2 states can hold
2 possible information, 4 can hold 4, 8 can hold 8 and so on. A qubit can hold all
states at the same time meaning 1-qubit can hold 2 states. A 2-qubit system can
hold 4 states, 50-qubit can hold 50^50 states at the same time. While a quantum
computer with low number of bits/qubits may not differ from a conventional
computers in terms of speed, as we reach higher number of bit/qubits the
difference is huge. The following table may help you to appreciate this fact.

Number of No of states in a bit-based No of states in a qubit-based

bits system system
2^N N^N
1 2^1 1^1
2 2^2 2^2
3 2^3 3^3
4 2^4 4^4
5 2^5 5^5
32-bit 2^32 32^32
64-bit 2^64 64^64

The power of exponential is what makes quantum computers extremely fast. This
is made possible by the principle of superposition that is exhibited by fundamental
particles like photon, electron etc. In a conventional computer 2-states (0/1) are
represented by flow of electricity in a transistor (remember I told you transistor is
like a light bulb). On the other hand, if I can make a photon, electron or any
fundamental particle to represent a qubit I have created an N-state system. This is
how a quantum computer works.

Scope and Applications

Large factoring
Simulations Materials science simulating complex molecules to find new
materials to develop safe and sustainable batteries and fuel cells.
 New materials are also being modelled for novel airplane,
automotive designs for better fuel efficiency, and aerodynamic
properties.
Climate modelling enabling meteorologists to better predict
trajectories of hurricanes, winter storms, and other weather
events.

Traffic Volkswagen carried out the world’s first pilot project for traffic
optimization optimization in Lisbon
More intelligent navigation systems could prevent traffic jams
by assigning allocated routes to millions of users. The ability of
QCs to reduce computational time from half a month to a few
moments implies that vehicle-to-vehicle communication is
safeguarded in real time, time and again.

Network data networks for energy efficiency

optimization

Drug discovery Computer-aided drug discovery (CADD) is being transformed

by quantum chemistry techniques specifically to model the
interactions between proteins.

Threats
One of the threats lies in the ability to break open encrypted data due to its
immense computing power. As such, all data encrypted with mathematical
equations is vulnerable to exposure to QCs.
Bitcoin hacking
QC can potentially be used to trace any private key on a blockchain network.
Cryptocurrencies will have to evolve and use different encryption and hashing
methods that are quantum-resistant.
At the current level of development (40-qubit computers) it is not possible to crack
RSA encryption commonly used for digital transactions. An RSA encryption is
depended on factoring of a 2048-bit integer. To break the encryption one needs to
factor this large integer which is difficult, cumbersome and time-consuming and
computation-heavy. (Shor's algorithm).
To crack such codes we would need a 10000-qubit computer which is far from us.
However the idea is to move towards quantum-resistant encryption systems in the
future.

Quantum Computer Power in

qubit
Eagle (IBM) 127-qubit
Sycamore of Google 53
Jiuzhang (first photonic quantum computer
Wuyuan 1st commercial quantum computer sold in China 24-qubit
system
Osprey (IBM) 433-qubit
The number of classical bits that would be necessary to represent a
state on the IBM Osprey processor far exceeds the total number of
atoms in the known universe,
IBM's wants to scale up towards the goal of 4,000+ qubits by 2025
nanoscopic technology that could present a massive leap for
"photonic quantum computing" — they have successfully managed to
get two entangled quantum light sources.

Quantum entanglement and Communication

network
The next quantum principle that is relevant for next-gen communication systems
include quantum entanglement.
Lets understanding entanglement with an example. Say hypothetically a photon has
the property, colour and the possible colours a photon can be are blue and red. 2
photons are said to be entangled if for some reason both photons have agreed to
have the same colour or they have agreed to have a colour different from each
other. This works even when they are separated by any distance. So if I have 2
photons that have agreed to behave in tandem and I separate them in space. One I
keep it in my room and another I send it to mars. When I see the colour of photon
in my room I know the colour of photon on mars. This is called entanglement.
This is what Einstein called as spooky action at a distance. (to understand why this
happens look at the 1st paragraph)

Quantum entanglement is said to revolutionize present-day communication

systems and cryptography. One way to classify the modern day communication
systems is on the basis of the medium used to transmit data. Wireless transmission
includes the use of electromagnetic waves propagated in air. Wired transmission
includes use of optical cable, copper cables etc.
Regardless, the communication involves 'transmitting' information which is
susceptible to interception. Quantum entanglement enables interception-free
communication because there is nothing to interrupt.

Let us understand this with an example. Say I have a communication link between
two people A and B separated by a distance of 100 km. A sends a voice message to
B. The voice message is first captured by the mic which is then converts the voice
to a digital signal which is then transmitted through a wire or EM wave. The
frequency of the EM wave or the current flowing through the wire represents the
information. At the receiver end a receiver is equipped to capture the same
frequency and the information is received. In addition the signal so sent is
encrypted. The rule used to encrypt information (commonly called as key) is also
sent through the same means, wire or wireless. The encryption key which is also an
EM wave or electric current sent through the same network can be intercepted.
Alternately in quantum communication network the encryption key is a quantum
particle like photon. To do this 2 photons that are entangled are distributed
between 2 ends of the communication link. If I measure the property of one
photon I know the same property of the other. In essence the two photons are
talking to each other and can be used as an encryption key. This is what is used in
quantum communication and this is called quantum key distribution.

In short in a quantum communication network information to be transmitted is

sent by conventional means (wire or wired) and encryption key is distributed
through quantum system (photon in our example). This is aptly called quantum key
distribution. Further entangled photons may also be used to send information
through optical cables. If the sent photons are intercepted in the communication
channel the send will know because the property of entangled photon changes as it
is measures. This involves end-to-end transmission of entangled photons. This is
how future quantum networks or even quantum internet will work.

Scope and Application

At the current level of development most quantum networks are based on

quantum key distribution and is demonstrated by number of countries including
India and China. Further quantum networks are established using communication
links that transmit information using individual photons end-to-end.

Cryptography
 Encryption systems built based on quantum systems use entangled
photons to make encryption keys. These photon-based encryption keys
are said to change present-day encryption systems
Quantum networks

Based on Quantum key distribution (QkD)

India demonstrated QkD between Prayagraj and Vindhyachal. The

project was spearheaded by IIT Delhi and DRDO.
In 2017 China has established a 2000 km communication link based on
quantum key distribution between Beijing and Shanghai. In 2021 a
ground-to-satellite communication link was established based on QkD.
The name of the satellite is micius.
Most quantum networks including future inter-city quantum
communication networks will use quantum key distribution.
Based on Secured communication links

Quantum internet
Future quantum internet is going to be built using communication
links based on end-to-end photon transfer.

Squeezed states and Quantum sensing

Another quantum mechanical principle that is said to change modern-day sensing
and measurement include squeezed states that come from the famous Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle. According to uncertainty principle there is a limit to the
precision with which you can measure two related properties of a quantum particle
like photon, electron etc. For eg position and velocity or time and frequency. The
uncertainty with which one can measure is split between the 2 variables that we are
measuring. But what we can do by manipulating the quantum system is to reduce
uncertainty in one at the cost of the other. In this state it is possible to measure
one variable with extremely high precision. This is called squeezed state. This is
used in ultra-sensitive sensing. A quantum sensor, built on the basis on this
property of squeezed state, essentially senses how a particle interacts with its
environment including gravity, magnetic fields, temperature, pressure, rotation etc.
Scope and Application

Medical
Imaging and
diagnostics
Gravity Used in seismology, mineral exploration
sensors
Navigation Extremely sensitive clocks to be used in navigation systems are
being built using squeezed states in quantum systems.

Such quantum-system based navigation will redefine navigation in

vehicles particularly autonomous vehicles.
Gravitationa
l wave

The present-day gravitational wave observatories are built on laser-

based interferometers which essentially detects stretch in space-
time fabric due to gravitational waves. However the fluctuation of
light limits the sensitivity of these instruments. This is why future
gravitational-wave observatories use extremely sensitive quantum
sensors.
In fact Ligo and Virgo, two of the gravitational wave observatories,
are being updated with quantum sensors.