Quantum Mechanics: An Introduction via Qbits

Elan Frenkel
May 2016

Contents
1 Preface

2 The
2.1
2.2
2.3

3
4
4
5

Double Slit Experiment

Drunk Man with a Gun Thought Experiment . . . . . . . . . . .
A Violent Storm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Light: Wave or particle? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 The Axioms of Quantum Mechanics

4 Mathematical Representations of Quantum Systems

4.1 q-bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7
8

5 The Uncertainty Principle

6 Multiple qbits and Entanglement

10
6.1 The Bell State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7 The EPR Paradox

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8 Bells Experiment and Local Realism

8.1 Philosophical Musings: The Subject, the
8.2 a local hidden variable theory . . . . . .
8.3 The Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.3.1 The Game . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.3.2 In a World where Locality Holds
8.3.3 The Quantum World . . . . . . .
8.3.4 Carrying Out the Experiment . .

Object and Locality

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Preface

The purpose of these notes are to serve as an introduction to the bizarre world
of quantum mechanics via the simplified language of qbits. The notes may be
part of a larger project would tries to teach physics concepts via computer science methodologies. Most practically, I wrote these notes to teach the content
to myself.
The level of these notes are introductory and can be appreciated by anyone
with linear algebra experience. Hopefully future incarnations will cover some of
the mathematical notation and linear algebra so that the notes can be read at
the high school level.
The material covered is not normally seen until upper division physics courses.
We deliberately abstracted away much of physical realizations of quantum mechanicsalthough fascinating in their own right- to focus on the main anomolies and great
results which set it apart from other branches. In doing so one does not need
to have a deep physics background (although such a background can help in
appreciating the strangeness of quantum mechanics.)
I do not claim any of the ideas presented. The material is largely taken from
Professor Vaziranis class on the subject. (My process was to watch the videos
and then reconstruct the arguments in my own words.)

The Double Slit Experiment

Two screens placed in parallel from left to right. The first screen has 2 slits in
it. The first screen will be denoted the filter and the second will be denoted the
receiver.

2.1

Drunk Man with a Gun Thought Experiment

Imagine a drunkard with a machine gun to the left of the two screens. He starts
spraying bullets in a random direction uniformly. Where would you expect the
receiving screen to have bullet holes?
The answer, as you might guess, would be that you would see most of the bullet holes clustered around two points on the receiving screen (you could draw
straight lines from the points to the gun through the two slits). Due to small
variations the clusters resemble 2 Normal distributions with an appropriate variance. The places where the distributions overlap add as you would expect.
One obvious fact is that at any given time, a bullet can travel through only
one of the slits. Since at any given time a bullet can only land one place on
the receiving screen, in order to get the aforementioned distribution we had to
integrate (count) the number of bullets over time.

2.2

A Violent Storm

Now instead of a drunkard with a gun imagine a violent storm . A single wave
of the storm hits the first screen, and two individual waves are created at each
slit.
Consider the receiving screen. If it is equidistant to the the two slits, the

two waves arriving from the slits will be in perfect sync, and the wave will be
twice as high. On the other hand, there exists points on the receiving screen
where the two wave are perfectly out of sync. (The high of one wave corresponds with the low of another). In this case the waves cancel each other out,
and that part of of the receiver experiences very calm water with no waves at all.
As you might expect, this pattern repeats across the receiver, and we see an
interference pattern characteristic of the study of waves. Here instead of measuring how many waves hit a particular point on the reciever, we measure the
intensity of a wave at a given point. The intensity is given by the square of the
amplitude of the wave. When two waves are interfere, we add both amplitudes
and then square this sum to get the intensity.

2.3

Light: Wave or particle?

In 1802 it was discovered that light made a interference pattern similar to that
of the violent storm in the preceding section. For a long time light and its underlying mathematical representation was influenced by its conceptualization as
a wave.
In 1905 Einstein discovered the photoelectric effect (which he would later win
the Nobel Prize for). Although we will not go into the details, this discovery
seemed to suggest that light had discrete like properties.
As technology progressed, scientists were able to get finer and finer measurements of the double slit experiment with light as the source. They increased
the number of sensors on the receiving screen and were also able to lower the
intensity of the source of light.
When the light source intensity diminished, the intensity on the receiving end
diminished as expected, while still holding the aforementioned interference pattern. That is, the distribution shrank in size but the relative proportions of the
distributions remained the same.
But a curious thing happens when they continued to lower the intensity of the
light source. At a certain point, the intensity on the receiving screen changed
character. Now, at any given time , all points on the receiver either had a certain minimum energy E0 or they were blank. Turned even lower, and at any
given time there was only one receiver reporting the energy E0 . This is not the
behaviour of waves, but bullets.
On the other hand, the distribution of photons (light particles) integrated
over time reflects the distribution of waves. That is, we are just now looking
closer at the mechanism which was causing the distribution. Before the inten5

sity was so high that we did not see individual packets.

Alas, we arrive at a fundamental weird result of quantum mechanics. Although the distribution- integrated over time- reflects the interference pattern
of waves, if we reduce our measurement time interval and energy source sufficiently we see discrete packets of photons. But if we carry our intuition from
bullets, photons shouldnt interfere with one another. Even stranger, when we
turn down the energy source to the point that only 1 photon is being emitted
per time interval, we still see this weirdness.
But how could the photon be interfering with anything if it is alone? Certainly it either went through the top slit or the bottom slit, right? In order to
answer this question scientists put cameras on both slits to see which slit the
photon travels through. Indeed, they found that it either went through the top
or the bottom slit. So this settles it, right? Wrong.
Now we see another fundamental weirdness result. As soon as the scientists
measured which slit the photon travelled through, the interference distribution
(over time) disappears and is replaced by the bullet distribution (over time) .
They no longer see the strange interference distribution.
So apparently, light is both like a bullet and like a wave. And it doesnt like to
be measured. One modern view of quantum mechanics is that the particle travels through both slits and interferes with itself but only if you arent looking
at it.

The Axioms of Quantum Mechanics

In this section I will describe the axioms of quantum mechanics, which are very
simple to posit but have fascinating consequences. The first two axioms are
hinted at by the double slit experiment.
(1) A k-state quantum particle is in a superposition of the k states. Namely, a
k state particle | > is described as |i = 0 |0i +
...k1 |k 1i. The
P2 |1i +
scalars j are complex numbers
such that kk2 =
|j |2 = 1. (Recall that if

j = a + bi then |j | = a2 + b2 ).
(2) Measuring the system collapses the system into a single state. One cannot
measure the system without disturbing it. If the physical quantity of interest
of the measurement is the aforementioned states |ji, then upon measurement
the system collapses to the state |ki with probability |k |2 . The original superposition is destroyed the new state of the system is simply the result of the
measurement. (i.e. if state k is seen then the new state is |ki). Note that this

is still a valid superposition, but the entire mass of the distribution has now
collapsed to state k with probability 1.
Later we will see that that one can measure other physical quantities of interest
by measuring in another measurement basis This corresponds to treating the
state |i as a vector with entries i . Any measurement basis can (and must) be
represented as an orthonormal set of vectors which span the space that |i lives
in. Each of these vectors now represent a different measurement result. In order
to find the probability of a particular result, we simply take the inner product
of |i and that basis vector and square the result. (Thus, in particular, we see
that our original measurement rule was a special case of this in the standard
basis).
(3) The last axiom governs how the state changes over time. First we treat
the superposition as a vector as previously mentioned. The final axiom says
that only unitary transformations- rotations in the complex Hilbert space are allowed. In particular, angles between vectors stay the same and the magnitude of our vectors stay the same.

Mathematical Representations of Quantum Systems

The superposition principle tells us that a k-state particle |i = 0 |0i + 1 |1i +

..k1 |k 1i. We can also faithfully represent this system as the vectors

0
0
0
1
0
1
1
0

|i =
... |0i = .. |1i = .. ... |ki = ..
1
0
0
k1
P
Recall that
|i |2 = 1. Thus we see can be represented as a unit vector
in a vector space space with complex coefficients. The states |0i .. |k 1i are
unit basis vectors and are mutually orthogonal.
Any measurement takes place in a certain orthonormal basis. The probability
of measuring a particular basis vector is the inner product of the superposition
onto that basis vector squared.

4.1

q-bits

A qbit is the simplest possible quantum system. It can be described by only 2

basis vectors: |i = 0 |0i + 1 |1i
Physical implementations of a qbit include the energy levels of an electron,
the polorization of a photon, or the spin of an electron .

The Uncertainty Principle

Here we visit a simplified version of the Heisenburgs uncertainty principle with

qbits. This principle illuminates the seemingly random nature of quantum
mechanics.
Consider a qbit |i = 0 |0i + 1 |1i
Let us call the spread of the qbit to be |0 | + |1 |. Note that the spread
reaches its minimum of 1 when (|0 |, |1 |) is either (1, 0) or (0, 1). We say the
system is certain in this case. (Which is an intutive defintion, since a measurement in this basis would result in a definate
outcome). It reaches maximum

uncertainty of spread 2 when |0 | = |1 | = 22 . (Measurement in this case

is equivalent to throwing a 50/50 coin).
Now assume that in the standard basis a qbit is maximally certain. Let us
add another simplification and work with positive real numbers (ignoring the
phase). This means that the qbit |i is in state |1i or |0i.
What if we consider the certainty under a different measurement basis? Suppose we consider the sign basis of |+i , |i, where |+i = 12 (|0i + |1i) and
|i = 12 (|0i |1i). Note that this is the standard basis rotated by 45 degrees.

Now let |i = |0i = 22 |0i + 22 |1i . Similarly, if |i = |1i then |i = 22 |0i

2
2, and
2 |1i . In both these cases the spread with regard to the sign basis is
it is maximally uncertain.
Here we see that when the qbit is maximally certain under the standard basis, it is maximally uncertain under the sign basis. A similar calculation can
show the reverse implication. (Maximal certainty in the sign basis implies maximal uncertainty in the standard basis).
Further analysis can show that the spread of an arbitrary qbit with complex
coefficients in the standard basis multiplied
by the spread of this same qbit in

the sign basis must be greater than 2.

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proof:
First we need the fact that given two complex numbers, , ,
| + | + | | 2 max(||, ||).
Assume that has the greater magnitude (the proof where is greater is nearly
identical) . Now decompose into its components along and the vector perpendicular to , : = +
Now | + | | | = | + ( + )| + | ( + )| =
p

| + |2 + | )|2 +

| |2 + | )|2

p
p
| + |2 + | |2 = 2

Now, let |i = |0i + |1i. Then in the sign basis |i =

2
2 ( ) |i

2
2 (

+ ) |+i +

The spread of |i in the standard basis multiplied by the spread of |i in the

sign basis is :

2
2

(| + | + | |) (|| + ||)

2
2

(2 max(||, ||)) (|| + ||)

2(||2 + ||2 ) =

In
particular we know that the uncertainty in one of the basis must be at least

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2 at any point in time.
We also see that the more certain a qbit is in the standard basis the less certain
it is in the sign basis, and vice versa.
In particular, as soon as we start to measure in one basis, the preference must
collapse, and thus the other measurement basis becomes completely uncertain.
Thus, quantum mechanics seems to suggest that from the observers perspective particles are indeterminate. Certain interpretations of quantum mechanics
suggest that the uncertainty principle indicates an undetermined (random) universe.

Multiple qbits and Entanglement

Suppose we have 2 qbits: |i = 0 |0i + 1 |1i , |i = 0 |0i + 1 |1i How do we

describe the system of both particles?
In classical probability, two independent events can be described as the product
of the two events. You will happy to know that this is true in the quantum
world as well.
Measuring state |ii in the first qbit and |ji in the second will be denoted |iji.
Then in order to describe the system of two particles we take their tensor product :
|i |i = 0 0 |00i + 1 0 |10i + 0 1 |01i + 1 1 |11i.
Here we see that our intuition about independent qbits holds. The probability of measuring |0i on the first qbit and |1i on the second is |0 1 |2 = |0 |2 |1 |2 .
What if we perform a measurement on one of the qbits in a qbit system? The
rule is simple: we simply cross out the terms that do not agree with the measurement and re normalize. For example, if we measure the first qbit to be in the
1 0
|10i+
state |1i then the resulting multiple state system would be
2
2
|1 0 | +|1 1 |

1 1
|1 0 |2 +|1 1 |2

6.1

|11i

The Bell State

An interesting question arises when studying a system of two qbits. Can such
a system always be written as the tensor product of two qbits?

Mathematically, no. Consider the infamous Bell state: 22 |00i + 22 |11i. Try
as you might, one cannot decompose this into the tensor product of two qbits.
(One can easily derive an algebraic contradiction).
In fact, such a state is physically realizable (One can even induce the Bell
State) What does it mean for two qbits to be in such a state? We say that
the two qbits are entangled. Note that a measurement on one qbit completely
determines the other.
Even more, this particular correlation also holds in the sign basis, which as
you recall is our original basis rotated by 45 degrees:
|+i =
|0i =

1 (|0i + |1i) and |i = 1 (|0i |1i). From

2

2
2
2
2
2
|+i
+
|i
and
|1i
=
|+i

2
2
2
2 |i.

Now,
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here we see that

2
2

|00i +

2
2

2
[( 22 |+i
2
2
2 |i)] =

|11i =

2
2

|0i) +

|i) (

2
2

2
2 (|1i

|1i) =

|+i +

2
2

|i) + (

2
2

|+i

2
2

|i) (

2
2

|+i

2
2

2
2 (|0i

|++i +

2
2

|i.

In other words, a measurement in the sign basis of one qbit completely determines the other qbits sign.
Further, one can separate these two qbits by an arbitrary distance- say the
distance from Earth to Mars- and the correlation still holds.

The EPR Paradox

Einstein never liked the idea of quantum particles being in a superposition. He

believed that although the mathematics is correct, the theory did not give a
mechanistic explanation for what was going on. According to his belief, although particles appear to be in distribution of possible states, this only is
reflective of our incomplete knowledge. The particle really exists in one of the
states the superposition is merely a representation of the possible outcomes of
a deterministic process that is unknown.
No where is this dilemma more apparent then with entangled particles. How
does the measurement of one particle affect the measurement of another- what
is the mechanism? Quantum mechanics does not answer this.
Before the concept of entanglement was even formally given a name, Einstein Poloski and Rosen came up with a thought experiment which seemed to
suggest that Quantum Mechanics was an incomplete theory. Here we present a
simplified though experiment with qbits.
Take two qbits in the entangled Bell State. We give one to Bob and one to
Alice. Bob takes a spaceship to Mars.
Now Alice measures her qbit in the standard basis (lets arbitrarily call this
the direction of the qbit) , thus exposing the direction of both qbits. Now,
before light has time to travel to Bob on Mars Bob measures his qbit in the sign
basis, thus exposing the sign of both qbits.
EPR point out that this is a violation of the uncertainty principle, which states
that both these quantities cannot be simultaneously certain.
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The only way to explain such a phenomenon while insisting that quantum mechanics is complete is with spooky action at a distance. Namely, the entangled
qbits would have to act on each other faster than the speed of light which
seemed to violate Einsteins theory of special relativity.
The other option, of course, is that quantum mechanics is incomplete and there
exists a better theory without this spooky action at a distance.

8
8.1

Bells Experiment and Local Realism

Philosophical Musings: The Subject, the Object and
Locality

I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it- Albert
Einstein.
Einstein spent much of his life looking for a theory that accounted for quantum
mechanics that was observer independent. Our every day intuition tells us that
the moon is there, even when you arent looking at it. (Unless you are Donald
Trump or a Zen Buddhist).
But Quantum Mechanics seems to suggest a very different type of world than
the one we are accustomed to. It seems that measurement of a system disturbs
the system. This alone isnt weird. Anyone who has ever done a lab experiment
knows theres bound to be some measurement error due to imprecise instruments. A statement about the physical limitations of any measurement instrument would be weird but what quantum mechanics suggests is even wierder.
Entanglement illustrates this phenomenon perfectly. Measurement of a single particle alters another particle possibly light years away on a nearby star.
The particle that is on Alpha Centauri isnt even exposed to your measurement
instrument. Its almost as if knowledge itself is somehow the culprit!
The underlying phenomenon that seems to be violated is locality. Locality is
the principle that matter should affect matter in space and time locally . One
can, in principle, draw an  radius around space-time and account for the state
of that ball with relation to the configuration of that ball.
In some sense locality states that the equations that govern the universe are
expressed via some mechanism through space and time. Quantum mechanics
does not provide this mechanism. Even more troubling, it seems to posit ( see
the EPR paradox) that the mechanism is not bound by the rules of space and
time.

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8.2

a local hidden variable theory

An observer dependent reality, spooky action at a distance, and indeterminacy

were signs of a broken theory for Einstein. He spent much of his life trying to
discover a theory that did not have these aesthetic abnormalities that contradicted human intuition.
The most convenient way to explain quantum phenemenon without these abberations seemed to be a local hidden variable theory. This means that there is
hidden information encoded into the particles that quantum mechanics is overlooking.
In this view, particles only seem uncertain due to our incomplete model. The
true state of nature is independent of whether anyone or anything has measured it. Perhaps most importantly, entangled particles only seem to have
coordinated action at a distance.
One might wonder if such a philosophical view is testable by science. Perhaps
there are local hidden variables that are consistent with Quantum Mechanics
predictions but we cant test for them. Or perhaps there arent any local hidden
variables but its impossible to prove that their arent.
Einstein spent a good portion of his life looking for such a theory. It was not
until 10 years after his death that John Steward Bell stunned the world with
an experiment proposal that would determine the possibility of local hidden
variables as a viable explanation for quantum phenomenon.

8.3
8.3.1

The Experiment
The Game

Here, as in the other sections, we present a simplification of the experiment

using qbits.
Imagine Alice and Bob are playing a game in which they are on the same team.
At the start of the game they are allowed to strategize as much as they want.
(Or more formally, they are allowed to share a bit string I of arbitrary length).
As usual, Bob flies his space craft to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. At
the same time, Bob and Alice each flip private coins that take on value either
0 or 1. Let us denote the value of the coins to be ca for Alice and cb for Bob.
They then choose a value (well before they can communicate any message to

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one another) between 0 and 1. Let us call this va for Alices value and vb for
Bobs value.
The game is scored as follows:
If ca cb = 0 then Bob and Alice win if va = vb .
If c1 cb = 1 then Bob and Alice win if va 6= vb .
Otherwise they lose.

8.3.2

In a World where Locality Holds

Note that in 3 out of 4 of the cases of possible coin flips ca cb = 0. Therefore

a trivial strategy would be for both Alice and Bob to output va = vb = 0 and
win 75 percent of the time.
But this trivial strategy is also the best they can do.
Consider the case of pure strategies- one in which the Alices and Bobs output
are either 1 (with probability 1) or 0 (with probability one) in response to their
respective coin flips.
Then the only way to do better than 3 out of 4 cases is to win all of the cases.
But this is impossible. If ca , cb = {0, 0} then {va , vb } = {0, 0} or {1, 1}. Let us
assume it is {0, 0}, the other case has an identical proof. Then {1, 0} {0, 0}
as well, since Bob sees the same input and hence must have the same output.
This then constrains Alices output to 0 as well. Similarly {1, 0} {0, 0}. But
now {1, 1} must map to {0, 0}, since both Alice and Bob output 0 on input 1.
Thus they get the 4th case wrong.
A mixed strategy, one in which Alice and Bob can choose their output with
certain probabilities, can do no better. After all, a mixed strategy is simply a
weighted average of pure strategies.
Also note that our reasoning was independent of the arbitrary information Alice
and Bob are allowed to share prior to the coin tosses. This information has no
bearing on gaining any information about the collaborators coin toss value, and
thus cannot help.

8.3.3

The Quantum World

Now we allow Alice and Bob to, in addition to sharing a classical bit string, to
share entangled particles.

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The same game is played, but now Alice and Bob both have qbits that are
entangled in the Bell State with one another.
Now consider a measurement basis rotated by . If Alice measures her qbit,
and Bob measures in a rotated basis, then what is the probability that Bob will
measure the same basis vector under the inverse rotation mapping?
Alice measures and she gets |0 i. This collapses both qbits to |0 i. Now Bob
measures in the basis rotated by . Now we are asking what is the probability
Bobs qbit collapses to the the basis vector that is radians rotated from |0 i,
which we will call | i
By the measurement principle such a result occurs with probability equal to
the magnitude of the inner product of the two vectors squared: | < 0 , > |2
which by elementary geometry is equal to | cos |2 .
Now here is the strategy. If Alices coin comes up to be a 0, she will measure in the standard basis rotated by 4 radians. If her coin comes up to be a 1,
she will measure in the standard basis.
If Bob gets a 0, he will measure in the standard basis rotated by
wise he will measure in the standard basis rotated by 3
8 .

8.

Other-

In the cases where Alice gets a 0, the distance between the two measurement
basis is a rotation by 8 . In the case that she gets a 1 and Bob gets a 0, we
similarly see the the distance is a rotation of 8 .
In all these cases Alice and Bob win if they output the same basis vector (after
labeling the basis vectors a 0 or 1) under the inverse rotation. As we have
shown, this happens with probability | cos 8 |2 .
In the final case, both Alice and Bobs coins return 1. Then Alice measures
in the Standard basis and Bob measures in a basis rotated by 3
8 . Thus they
2
will output the same number with probability | cos 3
|
.
8
But in this case we want them to output different numbers. Thus the prob 2
2
ability of success is the complement, which is 1| cos 8 |2 = | sin 3
8 | = | cos 8 | .
So in all cases we succeed with probability | cos 8 |2 .85 !

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8.3.4

Carrying Out the Experiment

The great thing about Bells thought experiment is that you can actually carry
it out! One can create an entangled qbit, and play the aforementioned game at
a suitably long enough distance such that the qbits cannot communicate information about the private coin tosses.
One repeats this many times and sees if the winning percentage is close to
85 percent or below 75 percent. If its the former case, then we can rule out
the case that the entanglement correlation is due to private hidden variables
(which could be represented by a classical shared information string)! Thus the
concept of locality would be violated.
Indeed this was done 1972 for the first time, and the results confirmed the
hypothesis that local realism does not apply to the quantum world! Since then,
many experiments have been performed with increased accuracy. They all support the bizarre predictions of quantum mechanics!

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