Given a parametrized quantum circuit such that a certain setting of these real-valued parameters corresponds to Grover's celebrated search algorithm, can a variational algorithm recover these settings and hence learn Grover's algorithm? We studied several constrained variations of this problem and answered this question in the affirmative, with some caveats. Grover's quantum search algorithm is optimal up to a constant. The success probability of Grover's algorithm goes from unity for two qubits, decreases for three and four qubits, and returns near unity for five qubits, then oscillates ever so close to unity, reaching unity in the infinite qubit limit. The variationally approach employed here found an experimentally discernible improvement of $5.77%$ and $3.95%$ for three and four qubits, respectively. Our findings are interesting as an extreme example of variational search, and they illustrate the promise of using hybrid quantum classical approaches to improve quantum algorithms. This paper further demonstrates that to find optimal parameters, one does not need to vary over a family of quantum circuits to find an optimal solution. This result looks promising and points out that there is a set of variational quantum problems with parameters that can be efficiently found on a classical computer for an arbitrary number of qubits.
Given a parametrized quantum circuit such that a certain setting of these real-valued parameters corresponds to Grover's celebrated search algorithm, can a variational algorithm recover these settings and hence learn Grover's algorithm? We studied several constrained variations of this problem and answered this question in the affirmative, with some caveats. Grover's quantum search algorithm is optimal up to a constant. The success probability of Grover's algorithm goes from unity for two qubits, decreases for three and four qubits, and returns near unity for five qubits, then oscillates ever so close to unity, reaching unity in the infinite qubit limit. The variationally approach employed here found an experimentally discernible improvement of 5.77 and 3.95 for three and four qubits, respectively. Our findings are interesting as an extreme example of variational search, and they illustrate the promise of using hybrid quantum classical approaches to improve quantum algorithms. This paper further demonstrates that to find optimal parameters, one does not need to vary over a family of quantum circuits to find an optimal solution. This result looks promising and points out that there is a set of variational quantum problems with parameters that can be efficiently found on a classical computer for an arbitrary number of qubits.
This paper introduces a new approach to improve Grover's search algorithm by utilizing variational learning, with a specific focus on incorporating a partial diffusion operator. Grover's search algorithm is a well-known quantum algorithm that provides a quadratic speedup for searching an unsorted database. However, its performance can be further enhanced by modifying its diffusion operator. In this work, we aim to identify a parameterized quantum circuit that can effectively learn and optimize Grover's search algorithm, incorporating a partial diffusion operator. The key idea behind this approach is to use variational learning, a technique that employs parameterized quantum circuits to optimize the algorithm's performance. By adjusting the parameters of the quantum circuit, the algorithm can be tailored to better solve the search problem. Variational learning is employed to determine the optimal parameters for the partial diffusion operator, enabling the quantum circuit to adapt to different problem instances. Our experimental results demonstrate that the optimized quantum circuit outperforms the traditional Grover’s algorithm that uses the standard partial diffusion operator. The results suggest that the proposed approach offers significant improvements in terms of algorithmic efficiency and performance. This advancement could have important implications for the development of quantum algorithms, particularly in applications related to database search and optimization problems. In conclusion, this paper presents a promising new method to enhance Grover's search algorithm, utilizing variational learning and a partial diffusion operator, with results showing improved performance over the original algorithm.
Abstract With the advent of powerful quantum computers, the quest for more efficient quantum algorithms becomes crucial in attaining quantum supremacy over classical counterparts in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era. While Grover's search algorithm and its generalization, quantum amplitude amplification, offer quadratic speedup in solving various important scientific problems, their exponential time complexity limits scalability as the quantum circuit depths grow exponentially with the number of qubits. To overcome this challenge, we propose Variational Quantum Search (VQS), a novel algorithm based on variational quantum algorithms and parameterized quantum circuits. We show that a depth-10 Ansatz can amplify the total probability of k (k ≥ 1) good elements, out of 2n elements represented by n + 1 qubits, from k/2n to nearly 1, as verified for n up to 26, and that the maximum depth of quantum circuits in the VQS increases linearly with the number of qubits. Our experimental results have validated the efficacy of VQS and its exponential advantage over Grover's algorithm in circuit depth for up to 26 qubits. We demonstrate that a depth-56 circuit in VQS can replace a depth-270,989 circuit in Grover's algorithm. Envisioning its potential, VQS holds promise to accelerate solutions to critical problems.
Abstract With powerful quantum computers already built1,2, we need more efficient quantum algorithms to achieve quantum supremacy over classical computers in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era2,3. Grover's search algorithm4,5 and its generalization, quantum amplitude amplification6, provide quadratic speedup in solving many important scientific problems7. However, they still have exponential time complexity as the depths of their quantum circuits increase exponentially with the number of qubits6,7. To address this problem, we propose a new algorithm, Variational Quantum Search (VQS), which is based on the celebrated variational quantum algorithms8,9 and includes a parameterized quantum circuit, known as Ansatz. We show that a depth-10 Ansatz can amplify the total probability of k (k≥1) good elements, out of 2n elements represented by n+1 qubits, from k/2n to nearly 1, as verified for n up to 26, and that the maximum depth of quantum circuits in the VQS increases linearly with the number of qubits. We demonstrate that a depth-56 circuit in VQS can replace a depth-270,989 circuit in Grover's algorithm, and thus VQS is more suitable for NISQ computers. We envisage our VQS could exponentially speed up the solutions to many important problems, including the NP-complete problems, which is widely considered impossible.
The search for information in a system has been a continuous problem for a computer. This has resulted in the construction of a set of classical algorithms that can search for a set of data. This is why search systems can be divided into the type of information being searched, the number of solutions to find, and even the terms used for searching. With the emergence of quantum computing, new algorithms have been generated for this type of process. An example is the Grover algorithm, which performs theoretically better than traditional algorithms. This is why there has been research on optimizing it, applying it to new fields, and making it more accessible to industry users. Even if the algorithm is a promising alternative, one of the disadvantages of Grover’s algorithm is the use of an oracle function that must be generated for every set of search data. This review describes three sets of methodologies for generating quantum circuits that can be applied to constructing this oracle quantum circuit.
Grover search is a renowned quantum search algorithm that leverages quantum superposition to find a marked item with quadratic speedup. However, when implemented on Noisy Intermediate-scale Quantum (NISQ) hardware, the required repeated iterations of the oracle and diffusion operators increase exponentially with the number of qubits, resulting in significant noise accumulation. To address this, we propose a hybrid quantum-classical architecture that replaces quantum iterations with updates from a classical optimizer. This optimizer minimizes the expectation value of an oracle Hamiltonian with respect to a parameterized quantum state representing the target bit string. Our parameterized quantum circuit is much shallower than Grover search circuit, and we found that it outperforms Grover search on noisy simulators and NISQ hardware. When the number of qubits is greater than 5, our approach still maintains usable success probability, while the success probability of Grover search is at the same level as random guessing.
Quantum search is one of the most important algorithmic developments in quantum computing because it demonstrates how quantum principles can improve the efficiency of solving unstructured search problems. Grover’s algorithm provides a quadratic speed-up over classical linear search by reducing query complexity from O(N) to O(√N), where N represents the size of the search space. This review examines the principles, performance, and applications of Grover’s algorithm, with emphasis on its theoretical foundation and practical relevance. The discussion covers the roles of superposition, quantum interference, oracle operations, diffusion operators, and amplitude amplification in increasing the probability of measuring a desired solution. The manuscript also reviews the computational performance of quantum search in comparison with classical search methods and considers its relevance to database searching, combinatorial optimisation, cryptography, machine learning, bioinformatics, quantum chemistry, and materials science. The review highlights that Grover’s algorithm is not limited to database retrieval, as many computationally intensive problems can be reformulated as search or optimisation tasks. However, practical implementation remains constrained by current quantum hardware limitations, including decoherence, quantum noise, limited qubit availability, circuit depth, and the difficulty of designing efficient oracles. Despite these challenges, continuing progress in quantum hardware, error correction, cloud-based quantum platforms, and hybrid quantum-classical architectures suggests that quantum search will remain an important area of research. Overall, Grover’s algorithm represents a foundational quantum algorithm with significant theoretical value and potential long-term application in computational domains involving large and unstructured search spaces.