Experimental attempts to implement quantum speedup of computations over the past 30 years have yielded a negative result, despite the absence of physical laws prohibiting such speedup. The article formulates the limitation of quantum formalism in the form of uncertainty "the complexity of the system - the accuracy of its description at the quantum level", and provides arguments in favor of its physical status. An experiment to determine this constant through Grover's algorithm is described. Rough estimates on the constant of this ratio are given, based on the possibility of applying the quantum theory to two processes: the emission of a photon by a Rubidium atom and the decay of an unstable isotope of Helium 6. This ratio explicitly prohibits the physical implementation of scalable fast quantum computations, but leaves the possibility of modeling the dynamics of real systems on a quantum computer, the only advantage of which is the use of quantum nonlocality.
Experimental attempts to implement quantum speedup of computations over the past 30 years have yielded a negative result, despite the absence of physical laws prohibiting such speedup. The article formulates the limitation of quantum formalism in the form of uncertainty "the complexity of the system - the accuracy of its description at the quantum level", and provides arguments in favor of its physical status. An experiment to determine this constant through Grover's algorithm is described. Rough estimates on the constant of this ratio are given, based on the possibility of applying the quantum theory to two processes: the emission of a photon by a Rubidium atom and the decay of an unstable isotope of Helium 6. This ratio explicitly prohibits the physical implementation of scalable fast quantum computations, but leaves the possibility of modeling the dynamics of real systems on a quantum computer, the only advantage of which is the use of quantum nonlocality.
We consider quantum formalism limited by the classical simulating computer with the fixed memory. The memory is redistributed in the course of modeling by the variation of the set of classical states and the accuracy of the representation of amplitudes. This computational description completely preserves the conventional formalism and does not contradicts to experiments, but it makes impossible fast quantum algorithms. This description involves the slow down of quantum evolutions with the growth of the dimension of the minimal subspace containing entangled states, which arise in the evolution. This slow down is the single difference of the proposed formalism from the standard one; it is negligible for the systems from the usual experiments, including those in which many entangled particle participate, but grows rapidly in the attempt to realize the scalable quantum computations, which require the unlimited parallelism. The experimental verification of this version of quantum formalism is reduced to the fixation of this slow down. In all probability the memory of the abstract computer simulating quantum processes is limited by 10-20 qubits, so it iss possible to use the exiting computers for this aim.
The complexity of the quantum state of a multiparticle system and the maximum possible accuracy of its quantum description are connected by a relation similar to the coordinate-momentum uncertainty relation. The coefficient in this relation is equal to the maximum number of qubits whose dynamics can be adequately described by quantum theory, and therefore it can be determined experimentally through Grover search algorithm. Such a restriction of the Copenhagen formalism is relevant for complex systems; it gives a natural description of unitary dynamics together with decoherence and measurement, but also implies the existence of a minimum non-zero amplitude size, as well as a restriction on the equality of bases in the state space. The quantization of the amplitude allows us to formally introduce a certain kind of determinism into quantum evolution, which is important for complex systems.
Grover’s algorithm is one of the primary algorithms offered as evidence that quantum computers can provide an advantage over classical computers. It involves an “oracle” (external quantum subroutine), which must be specified for a given application and whose internal structure is not part of the formal scaling of the quadratic quantum speedup guaranteed by the algorithm. Grover’s algorithm also requires exponentially many calls to the quantum oracle (approximately 2 n calls where n is the number of qubits) to succeed, raising the question of its implementation on both noisy and error-corrected quantum computers. In this work, we construct a quantum-inspired algorithm executable on a classical computer that performs Grover’s task in a linear number of calls to (simulations of) the oracle—an exponentially smaller number than Grover’s algorithm—and demonstrate this algorithm explicitly for Boolean satisfiability problems. The complexity of our algorithm depends on the cost to simulate the oracle once, which may or may not be exponential, depending on its internal structure. Indeed, Grover’s algorithm does not have an quantum speedup as soon as one is given access to the “source code” of the oracle, which may reveal an internal structure of the problem. Our findings illustrate this point explicitly, as our algorithm exploits the structure of the quantum circuit used to program the quantum computer to speed up the search. There are still problems where Grover’s algorithm would provide an asymptotic speedup if it could be run accurately for large enough sizes. Our quantum-inspired algorithm provides lower bounds, in terms of the quantum-circuit complexity, for the quantum hardware to beat classical approaches for these problems. These estimates, combined with the unfavorable scaling of the success probability of Grover’s algorithm, which in the presence of noise decays as the exponential of the exponential of the number of qubits, makes a practical speedup unrealistic even under extremely optimistic assumptions of the evolution of both hardware quality and availability. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Adiabatic quantum algorithms must evolve slowly enough to suppress non-adiabatic transitions while remaining fast enough to be practical. In open systems, this trade-off is reshaped by decoherence. For Hamiltonians subject to dephasing Lindbladians, Avron et al. [Phys. Rev. A 82, 040304(R) (2010)] showed that a unique timetable exists that maximizes the fidelity with a target state. This optimal schedule is characterized by a constant tunneling rate along the adiabatic path. In this work, we revisit their analysis and apply it to the adiabatic Grover search framework, obtaining closed-form expressions for the optimal evolution schedule, the minimum runtime, and the resulting achievable fidelity. Moreover, by invoking an energy-time uncertainty argument, we identify a critical dephasing threshold beyond which further noise-assisted acceleration is prohibited, showing that the apparent advantage of strong dephasing is a Zeno-type stabilization mechanism rather than a conventional algorithmic speedup over unitary Grover search.
Quantum computer is the key to controlling complex processes. If its hardware, in general is successfully created on the basis of the physical baggage of the 20th century, the mathematical software is fundamentally lagging behind. Feynman's user interface in the form of quantum gate arrays, cannot be used for the control because it gives the solution of the Schrödinger equation with quadratic slowdown compared to the real process. The software must then imitate the real process using appropriate program primitives written as the programs for classical supercomputer. The decoherence will be reflected by some constant - the number of basic states that can fit into the limited of memory available to software. The real value of this constant can be found in the experimental realization of Grover search algorithm. Rough estimates of this constant are given based on the simplest processes of quantum electrodynamics and nuclear decay.
The Physical Impossibility of Quantum Computational Speedup: Two Independent Arguments from Quantum-Geometry Dynamics Quantum computing promises computational advantages that are, in the most celebrated cases, exponential. Shor's algorithm factors integers exponentially faster than the best known classical algorithm; Grover's algorithm searches an unstructured database with a quadratic speedup. These results are mathematically rigorous within their assumed framework. This paper asks not whether the mathematics is correct but whether the physical assumptions underlying it are. I argue that Quantum-Geometry Dynamics (QGD) — an axiomatic framework for physics derived from the discreteness of space and the kinetic nature of matter — establishes two independent foundational preclusions of quantum computational speedup. These are not engineering obstacles or decoherence problems that better technology can overcome. They are consequences of the physical structure of discrete space, and no improvement in qubit isolation, error correction, or fabrication technique can supply a physical resource that does not exist. The first preclusion concerns physical states. In QGD, matter is composed of preons⁺ that propagate through quantum-geometrical space by preonic leaps, each of which is a definite transition from one spatial unit to the next in the direction of the momentum vector. A preon(+) always occupies a definite position. There is no ontological superposition. What quantum mechanics represents as a superposed state is, in QGD, an epistemic description of our ignorance of the system's actual preonic microstate. Since ontological superposition is the physical resource on which quantum parallelism depends, its absence means that no physical system can instantiate the state required for exponential speedup. The second preclusion concerns physical processes. Causal succession in discrete space is categorically and structurally irreversible: every preonic leap has a definite direction, and no physical process can reverse the causal order of preonic states. This is not thermodynamic irreversibility arising from large numbers but a property of every individual preonic transition. Since the quantum circuit model is built on reversible unitary gates, and reversible computation has no physical instantiation in a discrete-space framework, the operational basis of quantum computing is equally precluded. I show how both arguments bite at specific steps in Shor's algorithm and Grover's algorithm. In Shor's algorithm, the first preclusion destroys the state preparation step and the second destroys the quantum Fourier transform. In Grover's algorithm, the first preclusion destroys the uniform superposition and the second destroys the diffusion operator and oracle. Either preclusion alone is sufficient; together they attack quantum speedup at both ends — what goes in and how it is processed. The black hole information paradox, correctly understood within QGD, provides independent confirmation: the paradox dissolves precisely because physical states are always definite and physical evolution is categorically irreversible — the same two features that preclude quantum speedup. The Uniqueness Theorem for QGD further strengthens the claim: if the two-axiom discrete-space structure is the unique viable foundational description of physical reality, these preclusions are not features of one possible framework among many but consequences of the physical structure of the universe. This paper supersedes the earlier paper Quantum Computing Under Quantum-Geometry Dynamics (Zenodo, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19522137) and should be read in its place. This paper is part of the Minimal Physically Derivable Theory (MPDT) programme.