Quantum Analogue Computing

By Vivien M. Kendon1 , Kae Nemoto2 and William J. Munro2,1

1
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
2
National Institute of Informatics, 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo,
101-8430, Japan
We briefly review what a quantum computer is, what it promises to do for us, and
why it is so hard to build one. Among the first applications anticipated to bear
fruit is quantum simulation of quantum systems. While most quantum computa-
tion is an extension of classical digital computation, quantum simulation differs
arXiv:1001.2215v1 [quant-ph] 13 Jan 2010

fundamentally in how the data is encoded in the quantum computer. To perform

a quantum simulation, the Hilbert space of the system to be simulated is mapped
directly onto the Hilbert space of the (logical) qubits in the quantum computer.
This type of direct correspondence is how data is encoded in a classical analogue
computer. There is no binary encoding, and increasing precision becomes exponen-
tially costly: an extra bit of precision doubles the size of the computer. This has
important consequences for both the precision and error correction requirements of
quantum simulation, and significant open questions remain about its practicality.
It also means that the quantum version of analogue computers, continuous variable
quantum computers (CVQC) becomes an equally efficient architecture for quantum
simulation. Lessons from past use of classical analogue computers can help us to
build better quantum simulators in future.
Keywords: quantum information, quantum computation, quantum simulation

1. Introduction
It is a quarter of a century since the seminal work of Feynman (1982) and Deutsch
(1985) introduced the concept of quantum computation, and fifteen years since Shor
(1997) produced an efficient quantum algorithm for factoring large numbers, thereby
raising the game for cryptographic schemes by suggesting a quantum computer
could break them more easily. Yet working quantum computers are still just toys
in a test tube performing calculations a child can do in their head. This is not for
want of trying. Spurred on by the seminal work of Shor (1995), Laflamme et al.
(1996), Steane (1996), who showed how quantum error correction can be used to
protect quantum systems from decoherence for long enough to run a computation,
the growth in research has been phenomenal on both theoretical and experimental
aspects of the challenge to construct a quantum computer. Steady progress has been
made over the intervening years, and there are a plethora of promising architectures
on the drawing board and the laboratory bench. There is currently no clear front
runner in the pack. We are at a stage of development equivalent to that of classical
computers before the advent of silicon chips (a mere fifty years ago). We know a
lot about what a quantum computer should be able to do, and what components
it needs, but we haven’t identified the best materials to build it with, nor what it
will be most useful for calculating.

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2 V. Kendon, K. Nemoto, W. J. Munro

qubit register H gates produce superposition

of all possible inputs measure to get answer

H M
prepare input data
H M

CNOT
compute using
plus workspace qubits
quantum gates
H M
H M

CNOT
H M
time

Figure 1. Digital quantum computation (gate model).

2. Quantum computing
Feynman and Deutsch both (independently) perceived that a superposition of mul-
tiple quantum trajectories looks like a classical parallel computer, which calculates
the result of many different input values in the time it takes for one processor to
do one input value. Except the quantum system doesn’t need a stack of CPUs, the
parallel processing comes ‘for free’ with quantum dynamics, potentially providing
a vast economy of scale over classical computation. Of course, there is no ‘free
lunch’. Despite doing all the calculations in superposition, we can only access one
of the results when we measure the final state of the quantum computer. Figure 1
illustrates schematically how a simple gate model quantum computer works.
Programming for a quantum computer is thus trickier than classical program-
ming: you have to include a step to select the answer you want (at least with high
probability) out of all the possible results. Quantum programming techniques can
be grouped into a few distinct types. Promise problems, like Deutsch and Jozsa
(1992), hidden subgroup problems, like Shor (1997) for factoring, search algorithms
like Grover (1996), and quantum versions of random walks (see Ambainis (2004) for
a review, and Kendon (2006) for a gentle introduction). Some techniques are best
understood as a different architecture rather than a different programming method.
Minimisation problems, such as finding ground state energies, or satisfiability prob-
lems (kSAT) are best tackled using adiabatic quantum computation (Farhi et al.
2000). Adiabatic quantum computation has been proved to be equivalent to the
standard gate model of quantum computing (Aharonov et al. 2007), meaning that
we will be able to run adiabatic quantum algorithms on any quantum computer.
Many of these potential applications will require very large quantum comput-
ers before they gain an advantage over classical computers. For example, the best
classical factoring to date (Bahr et al. 2005) can handle a 200 digit number (RSA-
200), which is about 665 bits. For an n-bit input number, a basic implementation
of Shor’s quantum factoring algorithm needs 2n qubits in the QFT register plus
5n qubits for modular exponentiation = 7n logical qubits, so a 665 bit number
needs 4655 logical qubits. For a quantum computer of this size, error correction will
be essential. How much this increases the number of physical qubits depends on
the error rates. The closer to the threshold rates of 10−3 to 10−4 , the more error
correction is necessary (Devitt et al. 2009). These threshold error rates are smaller
than any experiment has yet achieved. For low error rates, maybe 20–200 physical
qubits per logical qubit are sufficient, while for high error rates (close the threshold)

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 Quantum Analogue Computing 3

it blows up quickly to around 105 per logical qubit. This suggests we may need Ter-
aqubit quantum computers to break factoring. While the scaling favours quantum,
the crossover point is high.
The picture is rather more promising for using a quantum computer to simulate
a quantum system, Feynman’s original inspiration for quantum computation. For
example, a system consisting of N 2-state quantum particles has 2N possible states,
and in general, it could be in superposition of all of them. Classical simulation of
such a system requires one complex number per state, which amounts to 2N +1 ×size-
of-double. With 1 Gbyte of memory, a system of N = 26 of the 2-state quantum
particles can be accommodated. The record set by De Raedt et al. (2007) is N = 36
in 1Terabyte of memory. Each additional particle doubles the amount of memory
required. Simulating more than 40 or so qubits in a general superposition state
is beyond current classical capabilities. If the system is restricted to only part of
its full Hilbert space, not all superpositions are needed, and with appropriately
designed methods to take this into account, larger classical simulations are possible
(Verstraete et al. 2004). This suggests that quantum computers with upwards of 40
logical qubits could perhaps do something useful for us we can’t accomplish with
classical simulation, in stark contrast to the Teraqubits required for factoring.
While a classical simulation allows the full quantum state to be tracked through-
out, data extraction from quantum simulations is not nearly so easy. Each run pro-
vides only a single snapshot of the outcome of a measurement on the superposition
state of the system. But methods have been designed for extracting key parame-
ters, such as energy gaps (Wu et al. 2002), or correlation functions (Somma et al.
2002) from quantum simulations. Open problems in the theory of nanoscale super-
conducting materials are one example where quantum simulation could make an
impact on the development of the field.
Quantum simulation has been demonstrated (Somaroo et al. 1999), for small
systems using NMR quantum computers. So what is stopping us from building a
quantum computer with 40 to 100 qubits tomorrow? Quite simply, this is extremely
demanding technology to design and build. It requires single quantum particles to be
localised and controlled for long enough to apply hundreds or thousands of precise
manipulations to them, singly or in pairs, and then measured individually with high
fidelity. And throughout the process, unwanted interactions from nearby material
or light must be prevented, or minimised and any remaining effects reversed using
error correction techniques. Current state of the art for a quantum simulator is
. 10 qubits. Scaling up to 50 with a few hundred manipulations is believable with
the steady rate of development the experimentalists have been delivering. And it
is believable that at around 50 qubits, a quantum simulator could perform a short
computation without needing significant amounts of error correction. Going beyond
this without error correction is stretching credibility based on what we know today.
But error correction designed for digital quantum computers doesn’t work well
enough for a quantum simulator. We will elaborate on this point in section 4, after
discussing simulation in general, to set the problem in context.

3. Simulation
Computer simulations play an important role in most areas of science. Numer-
ical methods kick in wherever analytic calculations become too complicated or

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4 V. Kendon, K. Nemoto, W. J. Munro

Number Unary Binary

0 0
1 • 1
2 •• 10
3 ••• 11
4 • • •• 100
··· ··· ···
N N ו log2 N bits

Figure 2. Binary counting needs exponentially less memory than unary.

intractable, which can happen even for simple systems, like three bodies moving
under their mutual gravitational interactions. We use computer simulation to test
our models of the real world, by calculating in detail what they predict, then com-
paring this with our experimental observations. We don’t expect perfect agreement,
both experiments and computations have limited precision, and we may know the
model is only an approximation (to simplify the computation). If our calculations
and observations agree as well as we anticipate, this is evidence our models are
good, and hence we understand at some level how the system works. We may then
use our computer simulations to predict things we haven’t yet observed, or provide
more details of processes that are hard to observe by experiment. We may even
simulate systems that can’t, or don’t, exist in nature, to better understand why
nature is the way it is.
That computation of any sort works in a useful way is not trivial. An accurate
calculation of the trajectory of a space probe that takes five years to reach its
destination is crucial: we cannot just launch many test probes and see where they
end up in order to work out which trajectory we want. One key difference between
a classical physical system and a computer simulation of it is that we represent
it using binary numbers (0 and 1) in a register in the computer. This is like the
difference between counting on your fingers and writing down the number 8. Eight
has just one symbol in place of your eight fingers. Eight people have 64 fingers
between them and that only took two symbols to write down. This makes for a
huge saving in the amount of memory a computer needs compared to the size of
the physical system, see figure 2. Binary numbers mean counting using base two,
whereas we usually use base ten. The saving in memory is huge whichever base we
use, but the inner workings of the computer are easier to arrange using binary.
A second important reason why computer simulations work depends on the com-
plexity of the model compared with the complexity of the system being studied.
Stars and planets are highly complex systems, but we don’t need to model most
of the details to predict to very high precision how the planet will orbit the star.
Gravitation is a supremely simple theory compared with systems it can correctly
describe the behaviour of. This is part of the way our world appears to be, described
as the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” by Wigner (1960). More discus-
sion of simulating complex classical systems, and how to apply quantum computers
to this task, can be found in Harris and Kendon (2010), here we are specifically
interested in simulating quantum systems.

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 Quantum Analogue Computing 5

4. Efficiency and precision

For practical purposes, an efficient computation is one that gives answers in rela-
tively short human time scales (seconds, minutes, hours or days) at a cost we can
afford to pay. Computer scientists make quantitative comparisons between differ-
ent algorithms by associating a cost with each step of the algorithm and with the
amount of memory required to hold the data. This abstracts the idea that physical
computers have a limited size (memory) and maximum rate of elementary calcula-
tion steps per unit time. In most cases, ‘efficient’ means the algorithms use resources
that scale as a simple polynomial (like N 2 ) of the size N of the problem.
If we could efficiently simulate a quantum algorithm on a classical computer, we
would immediately have a classical algorithm that is sufficiently good to render the
quantum algorithm superfluous. To prove an algorithmic speed up for a quantum
algorithm, we have to prove that no classical algorithm of any type can do as well:
such proofs are in general very difficult. Shor’s algorithm (Shor 1997) is only the
‘best known’ algorithm for factoring, there is no proof something classical and faster
can’t be found in future.
Just as we can’t usually make a perfect measurement that determines exactly
how long or heavy something is, we also generally have to represent numbers in a
computer to a fixed precision. As the computation proceeds, the errors due to the
fixed precision slowly grow. For very long computations, they can overwhelm the
answer and render it useless. The accuracy we require for our answer thus places an-
other demand on how much memory and time we need to perform our computation.
Starting out with a higher precision to represent our numbers allows high precision
for the answer. If we represent our numbers as floating point with an exponent, e.g.,
0.1011101101 × 24 , then for an error of size ε, the number of bits (binary digits) of
precision is log2 (1/ε). For the example just given, which has ten bits of precision,
ε = 2−10 . Efficient algorithms require resources (time and memory) that scale as
log2 (1/ε). Algorithms running on digital computers, that store their numbers in
this binary format, usually have this logarithmic scaling for precision. However, for
computers that store information in a unary encoding, such as quantum simulators,
the errors will scale as 1/ε, thus requiring exponentially more resources for the same
increase in precision as their binary encoded counterparts.
Approximating real numbers to a fixed precision introduces errors into calcu-
lations that grow larger as the computation proceeds. If the computation requires
many steps, it may be necessary to use a higher precision to avoid the errors swamp-
ing the final answer. As well as errors arising from the limited precision, the oper-
ation of the computer itself may be imperfect and introduce random errors. In our
present day classical computers, such errors are so unlikely to happen we can forget
about them. In contrast, error correction for digital quantum computation will be
essential beyond about 100 qubits and 100 computational steps.

5. Quantum simulation of quantum systems

The main reason why classical simulations of quantum systems are not efficient is
because the memory required scales exponentially in the system size, due to the
exponential number of quantum superpositions. This can be solved by using the
efficient storage achieved by quantum computers. Mapping the Hilbert space of the

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6 V. Kendon, K. Nemoto, W. J. Munro

adder multiplier integrator constant

x x R R
+ x+y x a a·x xdy x
y y
Figure 3. GPAC operation set.

system directly onto the Hilbert space of the quantum computer gives us efficient
memory use. We also require that a quantum simulator can run using an efficient
number of time steps. Lloyd (1996) showed that the Hamiltonian evolution of the
quantum system can be decomposed into a sequence of standard Hamiltonians
by using the Trotter approximation. Each standard Hamiltonian is applied for a
short time to build up the desired evolution. The number of steps required scales
polynomially in the accuracy, so this part of the algorithm is also efficient.
However, any small errors or imperfections in the operation of the quantum
simulator will affect the result in a linear rather than logarithmic way, because the
system is mapped directly onto the quantum simulator, rather than being binary
encoded into numbers in qubit registers. Consequently, we will need exponentially
more resources to correct for these errors. This raises the prospect of crippling error
correction requirements for practical quantum simulators (Brown et al. 2006).
Quantum simulation has much in common with analogue computation in the
way the data is encoded. It shares the problem that an extra bit of precision requires
a doubling of the resources. However, this suggests two avenues for the development
of quantum simulation that have not yet been well-explored. Firstly, looking back
to the era of analogue computation can teach us lessons for how to make quan-
tum simulation practically useful, despite the unfavorable scaling of the resources.
Secondly, we can consider quantum versions of analogue computation for quantum
simulation architectures. We discuss both these ideas in the next sections.

6. Analogue computing
Despite the exponential saving in memory gained through binary encoding, the
earliest computers didn’t use it. From the invention of the astrolabe for plotting
the heavens in around 200 BC, through the slide rule, and mechanical differential
analyser (Thomson 1876), these computational devices represented the quantity
they were computing as the size of some part of the apparatus. If you wanted a more
accurate answer, you had to build a larger device: for another bit or precision, it
would need to be twice the size. Yet, for the problems these machines were designed
to solve, they were very effective in practice.
Shannon (1941) provided a theoretical model, the General Purpose Analogue
Computer (GPAC), which is a mathematical description of the differential analyser.
The GPAC consists of a set of nonlinear boxes, connected by their inputs and
outputs. Four basic operations are sufficient, shown in figure 3. There are a few
rules for how the boxes can be connected. Each output of a box goes to at most one
input; inputs cannot be interconnected, i.e., there is no “splitter” to allow the same
input to go to more than one box; similarly, outputs cannot be interconnected. It
has been proved by Pour-El (1978), and Lipshitz and Rubel (1981) that the set of
functions generated this way is the set of differentially algebraic functions. In other
words, we can solve any ordinary differential equation with this type of device,

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 Quantum Analogue Computing 7

given appropriate boundary conditions as part of the input. This abstract notion
of computation can be realised in many different physical systems, such as water in
pipes or electronic circuits. Such systems were quite common in university science
departments before digital computers became widespread.
There have been a number of suggestions for how to expand the model by adding
more operations to the available set e.g., Rubel (1993), Graca (2004), Mills (2008).
These are mathematical extensions and it isn’t clear whether they can be physically
constructed, raising the question of just exactly what we can in practice compute
given the way the physical world works. Rubel (1981) observed that there are simple
differential equations that are universal in the sense that they can approximate
any other differential equation to arbitrary accuracy. In practice, these probably
aren’t useful for computation, attempts to build a circuit that implements such a
differential equation turn out to be completely unstable (Mills 2009). While Rubel
(1989) proved that a classical digital computer can efficiently simulate an analogue
computer, the reverse question of whether an analogue computer can simulate a
digital computer efficiently is open.
Analogue computers might still provide a useful function in our digital world:
for certain calculations they are extremely fast. When a specific task is required
repeatedly (e.g., video rendering in real time), a dedicated analogue “chip” might
outperform a digital circuit.

7. Continuous variable quantum computing

There is a fully quantum version of analogue computing, usually known as continu-
ous variable quantum computing (CVQC) and first described by Lloyd and Braunstein
(1999). The information is encoded in the eigenstates of a continuous-spectrum
operator such as position x̂ or momentum p̂. Computations are carried out by
manipulating the physical states. Position and momentum are a conjugate pair of
operators, which are orthogonal in the sense that [x̂, p̂] = i up to a real normalisa-
tion constant. They act on the Hilbert Space L2 (R), the space of square-integrable
functions over R (square-integrable is important as it corresponds to being normal-
isable). To perform a quantum computation, we create an initial state, evolve the
state in a prescribed way by applying an appropriate Hamiltonian to the state, and
then perform a measurement from which we can extract the results.
Universal computation can be done in CVQC using a small set of elementary
operations. Any Hamiltonian can be written as a Hermitian polynomial in the
position and momentum operators x̂ and p̂, and we can generate any Hermitian
polynomial in x̂ and p̂ by using the following set of operators (Lloyd and Braunstein
1999):

1. simple linear operations, {±x̂, ±p̂}, and quadratic, e.g., x̂2 + p̂2 ,

2. a non-linear operation at least cubic i.e., x̂3 or p̂3 , the Kerr Hamiltonian
HKerr = (x̂2 + p̂2 )2 , may be easier experimentally,

3. an interaction to couple two modes together, e.g., the beam splitter operation.

It is easy to see how this works when the continuous quantity is the position, x
(say). After evolving the state with some Hamiltonian, measuring the new position

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8 V. Kendon, K. Nemoto, W. J. Munro

gives us the answer (or one possible answer out of a superposition or distribution).
But the Heisenberg uncertainty principle means that if we know the position ex-
actly, the momentum is totally undetermined. This asymmetry in the uncertainty
is known as squeezing, and using a single quadrature like this requires infinitely
squeezed states, which are unphysical. Experimentally, we can’t even get a good
approximation of an infinitely squeezed state, so for practical purposes, we need to
choose a different way to encode our information, and the obvious choice is to use
Gaussian states, which have the uncertainty spread between the two quadratures x
and p. The nonlinear operation in our CVQC will evolve the state into something
that is no longer a Gaussian state: if it didn’t, the whole computation would be
efficiently classically simulatable (Bartlett et al. 2002). This corresponds to having
a superposition or distribution of different answers: when we make a measurement,
we will interpret the outcome as a Gaussian state from which we can extract the
result of out computation.
Implementing CVQC in a real system may require some modification to the set
of elementary gates, to adapt it to what is experimentally practical, for an exam-
ple, see Wagner et al. (2010). While continuous variables are a practical choice for
many quantum communications tasks (see Braunstein and van Loock (2005) for a
review), very little has been developed for CVQC. In particular, it shares the un-
favorable scaling of resources with precision that classical analogue and quantum
simulation have, and standard error correction results for digital quantum compu-
tation don’t apply (Niset et al. 2009).

8. CVQC for quantum simulation

For quantum simulation, where the digital advantage of binary encoding is already
lost, CVQC deserves a critical second look. Many quantum systems are naturally
continuous: for these a CVQC quantum simulation would be especially appropriate.
Experimental systems suitable for CVQC can be developed from many of the ar-
chitectures currently proposed for digital quantum computing: whenever qubits are
coupled using some sort of field mode, this can be inverted by regarding the field
mode as the continuous variable and the qubits as the control system. Wagner et al.
(2010) describes how the micromaser can be used this way, and the photonic mod-
ule of Devitt et al. (2007) is also promising. Squeezing is one of the elementary
operations we need in CVQC when encoding with Gaussian states, and we can
use the degree of squeezing to estimate how large our system needs to be to beat
classical simulation. Suzuki et al. (2006) have achieved 7dB of squeezing in optical
experiments. For one mode, 7dB of squeezing corresponds to 2 − 3 bits of precision
i.e., around 5 distinguishable outcomes when the state is measured. With arbi-
trary perfect coupling, going beyond what we can simulate classically corresponds
to more than 17 modes coupled together, since the combination takes us above 40
equivalent (qu)bits. Experimentally, nine modes have been combined in CV error
correction by Aoki et al. (2009), though this stays within Gaussian states and is
thus still efficiently classically simulatable. This is a very rough estimate, because
evolving the system accurately in a classical simulation would in practice require
higher precision to produce the required final precision for the output. On the other
hand, we can’t achieve arbitrary coupled states with current technology. But it does
give a feel for the potential for CVQC quantum simulation.

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 Quantum Analogue Computing 9

9. The future of quantum simulation

The goal of building a quantum computer large enough to solve problems beyond
the reach of the classical computational power available to us, is coming closer. The
first useful application for quantum computers is likely to be simulation of quantum
systems. Small quantum simulations have already been demonstrated, and useful
quantum simulations – that solve problems inaccessible to classical computation
– require less than a hundred qubits and may be viable without error correction.
While the theoretical underpinnings of digital computation are well developed, there
are significant gaps in our understanding of analogue computing theory, and these
are in turn slowing the progress of CVQC and quantum simulation. Investment in
developing the missing theory is as crucial for the future development of quantum
technology as experimental progress in quantum coherence and quantum control.
We thank Katherine Brown, Simon Devitt, Mark Everitt, Martin Jones, and Rob Wagner
for useful and stimulating discussions. Thanks to Mark Everitt and Rob Wagner for drafts
of figure 3. VK is funded by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship. WM and KN
acknowledge funding from the EU project HIP. This work was supported by a UK Royal
Society International Joint Project Grant.

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