THE PHYSICS OF QUANTUM INFORMATION: COMPLEMENTARITY, UNCERTAINTY, AND ENTANGLEMENT

Abstract

Complementarity is one of the central mysteries of quantum mechanics, dramatically illustrated by the wave-particle duality in Young's double-slit experiment, and famously regarded by Feynman as "impossible, absolutely impossible to describe classically, [and] which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics" (emphasis original).1 The overarching goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that complementarity is also at the heart of quantum information theory, that it allows us to make (some) sense of just what information "quantum information" refers to, and that it is useful in understanding and constructing quantum information processing protocols.