Quantum Computation with Programmable Connections Between Gates

A new model of quantum computation is considered, in which the connections between gates are programmed by the state of a quantum register. This new model of computation is shown to be more powerful than the usual quantum computation, e.g. in achieving the programmability of permutations of N different unitary channels with 1 use instead of N uses per channel. For this task, a new elemental resource is needed, the quantum switch, which can be programmed to switch the order of two channels with a single use of each one.