Quantum information processing, quantum computing, and quantum error correction: an engineering approach, 2nd edition

Synchrotron light sources are important facilities for a broad area of research and applications, in particular for structural analysis of a wide range of samples from physics, chemistry, biology and materials science. This is to a large extent owed to their well-defined and brilliant light beams that are available over a large spectrum of photon energies, especially at high photon energies in the X-ray regime. Synchrotron light was first observed in the early days of particle accelerators and storage rings, and first specialised machines were built from the late 1960s on. Nowadays, several dozens of such facilities exist world-wide, the largest ones with diameters in excess of a kilometre. They usually work with high-energy electron beams of up to GeV energies that are deflected in a specific way to produce the desired light at a given position. Free-electron lasers are based on the same principles. Most of these are large-scale facilities with numerous photon beamlines for different kinds of studies. Since typical photon energies and intensities are high, these beamlines usually feature specialised optics that are part of synchrotron technology. The current book is a monograph that treats the working principles and technologies of synchrotron light sources and discusses applications especially with regard to structural and electronic properties of materials. After a brief introduction to the topic in the first chapter, the second chapter ‘Synchrotron Radiation Sources’ discusses the way in which such facilities are built and operated, and the principles onwhich theywork. Thismainly includes acceleration and storage of high-energy electrons, insertion devices such as wigglers and undulators that cause the radiation, and the resulting properties of the radiation such as energy, emittance and spectral features. Chapter three ‘Getting the Light to the Samples: Beamlines’ is concerned with the optics required for light propagation towards the experiment sites, focussing of the beams, the use of monochromators, light fluxmeasurement devices and such. The following chapters deal with various techniques for structural and spectroscopic analysis of samples at such beamlines. ‘Crystalline Structural Techniques’ mainly treats X-ray diffraction methods, while ‘Local Structural Techniques’ discusses mostly X-ray scattering and the physics of photo-electron diffraction and scattering. Techniques for spectroscopic analysis are presented in the chapters ‘Probes of Electronic Structure’ and ‘Probes of Vibrational Structure’, whereas the last chapter ‘Imaging and Micro/Nano-Analysis’ deals with X-ray imaging techniques on the nanoand micro-scales with a focus on materials research. The text is nicely written in a clear and modern style with references to scientific publications, mostly journal articles. It presents some of the important physics by equations that can be understood at latest from the advanced undergraduate level onwards. The text is supported by ample black-and-white figures and greyscale pictures. The overall structure of the book is logical and hence easy to follow. It is likewise brief yet thorough in its description of the topics under discussion. The print, the paper and the overall bookmaking are excellent. It can be fully recommended to students from the advanced undergraduate level onwards who take a course in synchrotron and related physics, and to newcomers who start to work at such a facility, but also to more senior scientists who want to be reminded of all those techniques the abbreviations of which they keep forgetting.

Synchrotron light sources are important facilities for a broad area of research and applications, in particular for structural analysis of a wide range of samples from physics, chemistry, biology and materials science. This is to a large extent owed to their well-defined and brilliant light beams that are available over a large spectrum of photon energies, especially at high photon energies in the X-ray regime. Synchrotron light was first observed in the early days of particle accelerators and storage rings, and first specialised machines were built from the late 1960s on. Nowadays, several dozens of such facilities exist world-wide, the largest ones with diameters in excess of a kilometre. They usually work with high-energy electron beams of up to GeV energies that are deflected in a specific way to produce the desired light at a given position. Free-electron lasers are based on the same principles. Most of these are large-scale facilities with numerous photon beamlines for different kinds of studies. Since typical photon energies and intensities are high, these beamlines usually feature specialised optics that are part of synchrotron technology. The current book is a monograph that treats the working principles and technologies of synchrotron light sources and discusses applications especially with regard to structural and electronic properties of materials. After a brief introduction to the topic in the first chapter, the second chapter 'Synchrotron Radiation Sources' discusses the way in which such facilities are built and operated, and the principles on which they work. This mainly includes acceleration and storage of high-energy electrons, insertion devices such as wigglers and undulators that cause the radiation, and the resulting properties of the radiation such as energy, emittance and spectral features. Chapter three 'Getting the Light to the Samples: Beamlines' is concerned with the optics required for light propagation towards the experiment sites, focussing of the beams, the use of monochromators, light flux measurement devices and such. The following chapters deal with various techniques for structural and spectroscopic analysis of samples at such beamlines. 'Crystalline Structural Techniques' mainly treats X-ray diffraction methods, while 'Local Structural Techniques' discusses mostly X-ray scattering and the physics of photo-electron diffraction and scattering. Techniques for spectroscopic analysis are presented in the chapters 'Probes of Electronic Structure' and 'Probes of Vibrational Structure', whereas the last chapter 'Imaging and Micro/Nano-Analysis' deals with X-ray imaging techniques on the nano-and micro-scales with a focus on materials research. The text is nicely written in a clear and modern style with references to scientific publications, mostly journal articles. It presents some of the important physics by equations that can be understood at latest from the advanced undergraduate level onwards. The text is supported by ample black-and-white figures and greyscale pictures. The overall structure of the book is logical and hence easy to follow. It is likewise brief yet thorough in its description of the topics under discussion. The print, the paper and the overall bookmaking are excellent. It can be fully recommended to students from the advanced undergraduate level onwards who take a course in synchrotron and related physics, and to newcomers who start to work at such a facility, but also to more senior scientists who want to be reminded of all those techniques the abbreviations of which they keep forgetting. We have disciplines such as quantum biology, quantum computation, quantum information, quantum engineering and quantum finance (!). While the adjective may sound superfluous in that there is nothing physical that is nonquantum, there is agreement among experts that the adjective is apt when it is required to invoke quantum superposition, entanglement and measurement in answering questions in a discipline. Quantum Information Processing (QIP) is a frontier research domain that can provide means to surpass many barriers known in the conventional computational scenario by exploiting the quantum features. Seeded by Feynman's articulation in 'There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics' and precipitated by Shor's formulation of a quantum factorization algorithm, the subject of QIP has grown much over the last few decades and is still growing. The fact that many information-technology majors and nations have made substantial investments in the area is enough to say that the field will play a vital role in providing efficient computation and information processing.

Manuel Vogel
In its second edition, Quantum Information Processing, Quantum Computing and Quantum Error Correction -An Engineering Approach by Ivan B. Djordjevic is an excellent source for full-fledged courses, short courses and seminars on specific topics in foundations and applications of quantum information. After a brief introductory chapter to cover the essentials of quantum theory, the book marches on to deal with almost every topic of practical interest in the field. The book has dedicated chapters on quantum algorithms, information theory, error correction, stabilizer codes, fault-tolerant error correction, cluster-states, quantum machine learning, key distributions and physical implementation of quantum circuits. There are a few pedagogical aspects that are worth mentioning. All the chapters in the book are gradual introductions to the topics covered. Also, the book has many end-of-chapter problems and in-chapter examples and illustrations. These features indeed make this book a student-friendly text.
The author has added a well-crafted chapter on quantum machine learning. This chapter contributes to making the book up-to-date for its intended readership. After a short note on machine learning, the chapter discusses ideas from neural networks, the Ising model, adiabatic quantum computing and quantum annealing that will prepare the reader for a more detailed study in the area.
I noticed a few typos, but not many happily. For instance, see Eq. 2.85 and the definition of the Bell state in the introductory paragraph of Section 3.7. Hopefully, readers will be able to get the list of typos from the website for the textbook.
In summary, I recommend this book as suitable for advanced undergraduate or postgraduate courses in any aspect of QIP. Entropy and free energy in structural biology: From thermodynamics to statistical mechanics to computer simulation, by Hagai Meirovitch, Boca Raton, CRC Press, 2020, 396 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-367-40692-9. Scope: textbook. Level: advanced undergraduate, postgraduate, researcher, scientist, engineer.

Srinivasan Sivakumar
Structural biology is an important component of drug discovery in focuses on understanding polymers and biological macromolecules. Recently, computer simulation has become the main technology for drug design, by deciphering the structure of proteins, elucidating their functions, disclosing their role in diseases, and calculating free energy of binding. Therefore, much more research is required to reveal the clearest details of these biological structures. Just as we expected, this book comes as a textbook that covers the application of new methodologies in computer simulation based on the basic concept of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.
We are very impressed with this book since Meirovitch has successfully developed novel methodologies in computer simulation for generating polymer chains, extracting the absolute entropy from Monte Carlo samples and calculating free energy of ligand-protein binding. The provided materials in this book consist of 23 chapters divided into four sections. They are very simple, concise and complete, which is the hallmark of the book. The first section begins with the explanations of probability theory. It gives fundamental concepts for calculating entropy through designing simulation methods and solving probability problems. The second section principally provides details about classical thermodynamics. It explains more about theoretical aspects of statistical mechanics. The third section describes the basic concept of non-equilibrium thermodynamics and statistical mechanics close to equilibrium. Finally, the last section is the prominent part of the book which explains advanced simulation methods for polymers and biological macromolecules.
The provision of complete materials enables this book to be a valuable resource for readers. We like the book because it has well-written prefaces which provide a clear overview of every chapter. It allows readers to easily know the main discussion topics before reading the whole book. To strengthen the reader's understanding, this book is equipped with several solved problems and examples. Moreover, some chapters provide homework for students as well as further reading, containing some recommended books for more detailed related knowledge. Unfortunately, we find a little inconsistency here. Meirovitch briefly writes introductions and summaries which are only found in certain chapters, whereas they are very good to build the intact concepts.
We are very pleased with this book because Meirovitch provides the material clearly, in a very detailed and wellstructured manner. The way he explains how to calculate entropy, free energy and other related properties using his sophisticated methodologies is very simple and easy to understand. However, in section one (Probability Theory) we find some equations using notations that have different meanings from the chemistry and statistical mechanics literature. To avoid confusion, Meirovitch provides a comment about notations at the end of the section. In almost all parts of the book, there are so many concise-written theories and mathematical equations. Therefore, this book is quite hard to understand by general people or non-expert readers.