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References: Physics Barriers and Hardware Platforms

  1. Quantum decoherence - Wikipedia - Explains the physical mechanisms by which quantum systems lose coherence through environmental interaction, the central obstacle to quantum computing that this chapter identifies as fundamentally different from an engineering challenge.

  2. Quantum error correction - Wikipedia - Describes surface codes, stabilizer codes, and the massive physical-to-logical qubit overhead ratios, directly relevant to this chapter's analysis of why 1,000-10,000 physical qubits per logical qubit make scaling prohibitive.

  3. Superconducting quantum computing - Wikipedia - Covers Josephson junction qubits, dilution refrigerator requirements, and millikelvin operating temperatures, providing technical context for this chapter's examination of cryogenic costs and scaling limits.

  4. Quantum Computer Science: An Introduction (2007) - N. David Mermin - Cambridge University Press - Provides rigorous treatment of quantum error correction theory and the threshold theorem, foundational to this chapter's analysis of why error correction overhead makes fault-tolerant computing so resource-intensive.

  5. Introduction to Quantum Error Correction (2013) - Daniel A. Lidar and Todd A. Brun, Editors - Cambridge University Press - Comprehensive reference on quantum error correction codes and fault-tolerant protocols, directly supporting this chapter's detailed examination of error correction overhead and physical qubit requirements.

  6. Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects (2019) - National Academies of Sciences - Reports that breaking RSA-2048 would require roughly 20 million physical qubits, a key figure in this chapter's analysis of the gap between current hardware and cryptographically relevant computation.

  7. Suppressing Quantum Errors by Scaling a Surface Code Logical Qubit - Google Quantum AI, Nature (2023) - Demonstrates error suppression using surface codes on superconducting qubits, relevant to this chapter's discussion of whether error correction overhead can be practically managed.

  8. Low-Overhead Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing - Gidney et al., arXiv (2023) - Analyzes resource requirements for fault-tolerant quantum computing, providing updated estimates of the million-qubit scale needed for practical computations discussed in this chapter.

  9. The Case Against Quantum Computing - Mikhail Dyakonov, IEEE Spectrum (2018) - Physicist's argument that fundamental physics barriers, not merely engineering limitations, prevent quantum computing from scaling, directly supporting this chapter's central thesis.

  10. Building a Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer Using Concatenated Cat Codes - Chamberland et al., PRX Quantum (2022) - Examines alternative error correction architectures and their resource requirements across hardware platforms, relevant to this chapter's comparison of fatal flaws in each of the five major qubit technologies.