Storing unitary operators in quantum states

Abstract

We present a scheme to store unitary operators with self-inverse generators in quantum states and a general circuit to retrieve them with definite success probability. The continuous variable of the operator is stored in a single-qubit state and the information about the kind of the operator is stored in classical states with finite dimension, The probability of successful retrieval is always 1/2 irrespective of the kind of the operator, which is proved to be maximum. In case of failure, the result can be corrected with additional quantum states. The retrieving circuit is almost as simple as that which handles only the single-qubit rotations and CNOT as the basic operations. An interactive way to transfer quantum dynamics, that is, to distribute naturally copy-protected programs for quantum computers is also presented using this scheme.