Quantum Mechanical Nature in Liquid NMR Quantum Computing

The quantum nature of bulk ensemble NMR quantum computing the center of recent heated debate,is addressed. Concepts of the mixed state and entanglement are examined, and the data in a two-qubit liquid NMRquantum computation are analyzed. The main points in this paper are: i) Density matrix describes the "state" of anaverage particle in an ensemble. It does not describe the state of an individual particle in an ensemble; ii) Entanglementis a property of the wave function of a microscopic particle (such as a molecule in a liquid NMR sample), and separabilityof the density matrix cannot be used to measure the entanglement of mixed ensemble; iii) The state evolution in bulk-ensemble NMRquantum computation is quantum-mechanical; iv) The coefficient before the effective pure state densitymatrix, e, is a measure of the simultaneity of the molecules in an ensemble. It reflects the intensity of the NMR signaland has no significance in quantifying the entanglement in the bulk ensemble NMR system. The decomposition of thedensity matrix into product states is only an indication that the ensemble can be prepared by an ensemble with theparticles unentangled. We conclude that effective-pure-state NMR quantum computation is genuine, not just classicalsimulations.