Concept of Qubit and its Properties
• Bit: A digital computer stores and processes information using bits, which can
be either 0 or 1.
• Qubit is the physical carrier of quantum information. It is the quantum version
of a bit, and its quantum state can be written in terms of two levels, labelled |
0⟩ and |1⟩.
• | ⟩ this notation is known as ‘ket’ notation and
⟨ | is known as ‘brac’ notation. Both are together called as Dirac notations .
The difference between qubits and classical bits is that a qubit can be in a
linear combination (superposition) of the two states |0⟩ and |1⟩. For ex, if
µ and b are the probability amplitudes of electron in ground state (ie, in |
0⟩ state) and in excited state (ie, in |1⟩ state) then the linear
combination of two states is
• |ψ⟩ = α |0⟩ + β|1⟩
• The numbers α and β are complex but due to normalization
conditions
• |∝|2 + |𝛽|2 = 1.
• Here |∝|2is the probability of finding |𝜓⟩ in state |0⟩ and |𝛽|2is the
probability of finding |𝜓⟩ in state |1⟩.
• Bloch sphere is an imaginary sphere which is used to represent pure single-
qubit states as a point on its surface.
• It has unit radius. Its North Pole and South Pole are selected to represent
the basis states namely |0⟩ and |1⟩.
• North Pole represents |0⟩ (say spin up) and South Pole represents |1⟩ (say
spin down). All other points on the sphere represent superposed states (ie,
state space).
• Bloch sphere allows the state of a qubit to be represented in spherical
coordinates (ie, r, θandφ). It is as follows
Dirac representation and Matrix operations
Matrix representation of 0 and 1 states
quantum states. The notation | ⟩ is known as ‘ket’ notation and | is known as
•In Quantum mechanics, Bracket notation is a standard notation for describing
‘brac’ notation. Both are together called as Dirac notations.
• The ‘ket’ vector typically represented as a column vector and ‘brac’ vector
typically represented as a row vector as follows