Quantum information (lecture notes)

There is no required textbook. Much of the material in the course is based on quite recent research that has not yet appeared in any book. Many relevant research articles can be accessed through the quant-ph eprint archive maintained by Los Alamos National Laboratory. One good reference is the lecture notes that were originally prepared for this course when it was taught for the first time in 1997-98. An excellent textbook, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang, will be available in the fall of 2000. In the early part of the course, we'll review the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics and the theory of measurement. Good books relating to this material are Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods by Asher Peres (on reserve in Millikan Library) and The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics by Roland Omnes. Also, there is a good discussion of measurement and decoherence in Quantum Optics by D. F. Walls and G. J. Milburn. Later, we'll develop the quantum theory of information, coding, and complexity. Good books on the corresponding classical theory are Elements of Information Theory by Thomas Cover and Joy Thomas, The Theory of Error-Correcting Codes by F. J. MacWilliams and N. J. A. Sloane, Computers and Intractability by Michael Garey and David Johnson, and Computational Complexity by Christos Papadimitriou.