A detailed resource analysis of an established quantum algorithm for convex optimization reveals that the practical run times implied by this quantum solution are impractical for problems of interest in finance.
Convexity arises naturally in the study of quantum information. As a result, many useful tools from convex analysis can be used to give important results regarding aspects of quantum information. This thesis builds up methods using core concepts from convex analysis, including convex optimization problems, convex roof constructions, and conic programming, to study mathematical problems related to quantum entanglement. In this thesis, I develop a method for solving convex optimization problems that arise in quantum information theory by analyzing the corresponding converse problem. That is, given an element in a convex set, I determine a family of convex functions that are minimized at this point. This method is used find explicit formulas for the relative entropy of entanglement, as well as other important quantities used to quantify entanglement, and allows one to show important relationships between them. I also construct a practical algorithm that can be used to compute these quantities. This thesis also presents a method to compute convex roofs of arbitrary entanglement measures evaluated on highly symmetric bipartite states. I also establish a framework for completely characterizing quantum resource theories that are convex. For resource theories with a simple mathematical structure, this gives rise to a complete set of resource monotones that can be computed in practice using semidefinite programs. This has applications to the study of entanglement transformations.
Portfolio optimization is an important process in finance that consists in finding the optimal asset allocation that maximizes expected returns while minimizing risk. When assets are allocated in discrete units, this is a combinatorial optimization problem that can be addressed by quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms. In this work we present an integer simulated annealing method to find optimal portfolios in the presence of discretized convex and non-convex cost functions. Our algorithm can deal with large size portfolios with hundreds of assets. We introduce a performance metric, the time to target, based on a lower bound to the cost function obtained with the continuous relaxation of the combinatorial optimization problem. This metric allows us to quantify the time required to achieve a solution with a given quality. We carry out numerical experiments and we benchmark the algorithm in two situations: (i) Monte Carlo instances are started at random, and (ii) the algorithm is warm-started with an initial instance close to the continuous relaxation of the problem. We find that in the case of warm-starting with convex cost functions, the time to target does not grow with the size of the optimization problem, so discretized versions of convex portfolio optimization problems are not hard to solve using classical resources. We have applied our method to the problem of re-balancing in the presence of non-convex transaction costs, and we have found that our algorithm can efficiently minimize those terms.