UC San Diego

The precise, human control of quantum systems, by its definition, must combine models of the classical and the quantum world into a calculus that supports both. Open, irreversible quantum systems must interact with closed, reversible quantum systems to predict evolutions that are partially open and closed. Inevitably, the problems of quantum measurement, the assumptions of scattering, and the role of spacetime comes under scrutiny. Such considerations have extraordinary practical value: the precise control of a quantum information is the cornerstone of scalable quantum computing. Traditionally, quantum control theory as well as a formalism of redundancy and partial measurements, known as quantum error correction, attempt to remedy systematic quantum- noise and random quantum-noise respectively, but have had mixed success. This dissertation examines how the imprecision of control in quantum and classical spin systems affects the flow of select information to a receiver and how such systems may be optimized against the imprecise scattering of control fields and spins. To this end, this dissertation intertwines the physics of state evolution with the physics of information control in classical and quantum systems. First in classical systems, a method for encoding and decoding classical spin- processing information provides an example of information flow. Then an analytic calculation of a semi-conductor spin channel's information capacity is performed. The results limit the rate of information processing and inform the design of materials for optimal spintronic information-processing in semiconductors. Next, noisy quantum interactions are described, so that the complexities of correcting small, random phase errors using traditional control theory and quantum error correction may be explained. How these noisy processes affect the relevant information flow of a quantum algorithm (derivatives of the Quantum Fourier Transform and Grover Search) is considered, several novel methods of source-coding for these quantum channels are presented and their efficacy calculated. These methods include Unitary- Fault Tolerance, Clifford operations of locally-variant basis, and an entropic controller. Together they show classical systems in the steady state can be used to control scalable, high-precision quantum-computing machines, and ultimately may eliminate all temporal control from quantum operations.