A short course in quantum information theory. An approach from theoretical physics. (Q5898320)

Quantum information and quantum computing - a novel branch of quantum mechanics - has emerged in the nineties and nowadays undergoes a tremendous revolutionary development. It aims to apply the specific features of quantum mechanics for the processing and transmitting information. Its appearance naturally causes the publication of textbooks and monographs. L. Diósi, the author of the reviewed book, named it as ``A short course in quantum information theory. An approach from theoretical physics.'' The content of this book is typical for the textbooks on quantum information, though unexpectedly L. Diósi starts his short course with Chapter 2 ``Chapter 1 is the introductory one and we will return to it slightly later'' on the foundations of classical mechanics, namely, the classical canonical Liouville's theory. Chapter 3, ``Semiclassical - Semi-Quantum-Physics'' is the bridge that links the previous Chapter with Chapter 3 on the foundations of quantum physics. Chapter 4 is the introductory Chapter that defines what is the quantum bit or qubit. Chapter 5 demonstrates how to manipulate with qubits and discusses the no-cloning theorem. The next two Chapters 7 and 8 are about composite quantum systems, pure states, about the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pair, entanglement, Bell's inequality, Bell's states, Schmidt decomposition, and quantum measurements. Actually, the information theory begins with Chapter 9 that presents the foundations of the classical information theory and ends with Chapter 10 that outlines the quantum information theory. The last Chapter 11 is dedicated to quantum computing and addresses in particular the problem of parallel quantum computing, the oracle problem, and briefly outlines some quantum algorithms such as the Grover's and Fourier ones and some quantum gates, viz., Hadamard, phase, CNOT, and XOR. Summarizing, the book by L. Diósi provides a concise, rather consistent and `thin'-book approach for teaching the quantum information theory which the author recommends ``for all physicists, mathematicians and other people interested in universal and integrating aspects of physics.'' The idea of this `thin'-book approach to expose some field sounds quite attractive unless - there are actually two `unlesses', I would say - first, this should be a single thin book than their collection that replaces in some sense a thick book, and second, it has to provide the readers with the self-contained and consistent material that would be sufficient for them to turn to concrete problems, largely without any suggestion to read further thick books. The contrary is written in the end of Chapter 1.