Quantum Computing
The Mathematics of Quantum Teleportation Explained
The mathematics behind how the quantum state of a particle can be ‘transferred’ to a distant particle using quantum entanglement.
First and foremost, it may come as a huge disappointment to learn that the term ‘teleportation’ in ‘quantum teleportation’ does not refer to the instantaneous transport of matter through space, but rather to the transmission of quantum information between potentially distant particles. Unfortunately, the kind of technology that allows the instantaneous transport of matter is likely to remain the stuff of science fiction for the foreseeable future. However, I hope that by the end of this article that fact won’t detract too much from how remarkable the quantum teleportation protocol is. In this article, we’ll provide an overview of how a maximally entangled Bell state or EPR pair of two qubits can be used to transmit a quantum state.
The first successful demonstration of quantum teleportation occurred in 1997, when a team of scientists at the University of Innsbruck in Austria successfully teleported the quantum state of a photon over a distance of approximately 10 feet [3]. Since then, the process of quantum teleportation has been refined and extended to greater distances, with the most recent experiments successfully teleporting quantum states over distances of up to 1,400 km [4].
