The quantum way to diagonalize hermitean matrices
Stefan Weigert · Fortschritte der Physik · 2003
Abstract An entirely quantum mechanical approach to diagonalize hermitean matrices has been presented recently. The method is based on the measurement of quantum mechanical observables which provides the computational resource. In brief, quantum mechanics is able to directly address and output eigenvalues of hermitean matrices. Here, the example of (2×2) matrices is considered in detail. This simple case allows one to illustrate the conceptual features of the general method which is applicable to (N×N) hermitean matrices.