Algorithmic cooling
A qubit (or quantum bit) is a unit of information that can be in a superposition of two states, denoted as formula_1 and formula_2. The general superposition can be written as formula_3where formula_4 and formula_5. If one measures the state of the qubit in the orthonormal basis composed of formula_1 and formula_2, one gets the result formula_1 with probability formula_9 and the result formula_2 with probability formula_11.
Quantum superposition
Another example is a quantum logical qubit state, as used in quantum information processing, which is a quantum superposition of the "basis states" formula_1 and formula_2.
Here formula_1 is the Dirac notation for the quantum state that will always give the result 0 when converted to classical logic by a measurement. Likewise formula_2 is the state that will always convert to 1. Contrary to a classical bit that can only be in the state corresponding to 0 or the state corresponding to 1, a qubit may be in a superposition of both states. This means that the probabilities of measuring 0 or 1 for a qubit are in general neither 0.0 nor 1.0, and multiple measurements made on qubits in identical states will not always give the same result.