Quantum Turing machine
A quantum Turing machine (QTM) or universal quantum computer is an abstract machine used to model the effects of a quantum computer. It provides a simple model that captures all of the power of quantum computation—that is, any quantum algorithm can be expressed formally as a particular quantum Turing machine. However, the computationally equivalent quantum circuit is a more common model.[1][2]: 2
Quantum Turing machines can be related to classical and probabilistic Turing machines in a framework based on transition matrices. That is, a matrix can be specified whose product with the matrix representing a classical or probabilistic machine provides the quantum probability matrix representing the quantum machine. This was shown by Lance Fortnow.[3]
A way of understanding the quantum Turing machine (QTM) is that it generalizes the classical Turing machine (TM) in the same way that the quantum finite automaton (QFA) generalizes the deterministic finite automaton (DFA). In essence, the internal states of a classical TM are replaced by pure or mixed states in a Hilbert space; the transition function is replaced by a collection of unitary matrices that map the Hilbert space to itself.[4]
