An algorithm for simulating the Ising model on a type-II quantum computer

Presented here is an algorithm for a type-II quantum computer which simulates the Ising model in one and two dimensions. It is equivalent to the Metropolis Monte Carlo method and takes advantage of quantum superposition for random number generation. This algorithm does not require the ensemble of states to be measured at the end of each iteration, as is required for other type-II algorithms. Only the binary result is measured at each node which means this algorithm could be implemented using a range of different quantum computing architectures. The Ising model provides an example of how cellular automata rules can be formulated to be run on a type-II quantum computer. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.