Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-laser-science-and-quantum-information-processing-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2008/8/2/solution
Past exam of the laser science and quantum information processing course of the University of Oxford 2008 8 2 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Let and be normalized qubit states. By linearity, the SWAP gate givesThe output remains a product state. Single-qubit unitary operators also preserve product states, so an induction over any quantum circuit made from these operations shows that it cannot create quantum entanglement from a product state. Equivalently, moves every exchange through the local operations, leaving only local gates and a permutation of wires. This is the product-state obstruction to SWAP universality.
Consequently SWAP gates and arbitrary single-qubit gates do not form a universal quantum gate set. For example, they cannot map to the Bell state , whereas a Hadamard gate followed by a CNOT gate does so.
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