Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Remarks on the Undecidability of the Quantum Halting Problem

Published

Author(s)

David Song

Abstract

The halting problem is a decision problem first posed and proved by Alan Turing in 1936. With the recent surge of interest in quantum computation, one is led to ask if the problem can also be considered for a quantum computer. It is reported that the halting problem may not be solved consistently in both the Schrodinger and Heisenberg pictures of quantum dynamics. The assumption of the existence of the quantum halting machine leads to a contradiction when a vector representing an observable is the system that is to be unitarily evolved in both pictures.
Citation
Physical Review A (Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics)

Keywords

Quantum halting problem, Schrodinger and Heisenberg pictures

Citation

Song, D. (2010), Remarks on the Undecidability of the Quantum Halting Problem, Physical Review A (Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics) (Accessed July 27, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created February 5, 2010, Updated February 17, 2017