Estimating statistical properties is fundamental in statistics and computer science. In this paper, we propose a unified quantum algorithm framework for estimating properties of discrete probability distributions, with estimating Rényi entropies as specific examples. In particular, given a quantum oracle that prepares ann-dimensional quantum state Σni=1√pi|i⟩, for α > 1 and 0Hα(p) to within additive error ϵ with probability at least 2/3 using Õ(n1-1/2α/ϵ + √n/ϵ1+ 1/2α) and Õ(n1/2α/ϵ1+ 1/2α) queries, respectively. This improves the best known dependence in ϵ as well as the joint dependence betweennand 1/ϵ. Technically, our quantum algorithms combine quantum singular value transformation, quantum annealing, and variable-time amplitude estimation. We believe that our algorithm framework is of general interest and has wide applications.
Estimating statistical properties is fundamental in statistics and computer science. In this paper, we propose a unified quantum algorithm framework for estimating properties of discrete probability distributions, with estimating Rényi entropies as specific examples. In particular, given a quantum oracle that prepares ann-dimensional quantum state Σni=1√pi|i⟩, for α > 1 and 0Hα(p) to within additive error ϵ with probability at least 2/3 using Õ(n1-1/2α/ϵ + √n/ϵ1+ 1/2α) and Õ(n1/2α/ϵ1+ 1/2α) queries, respectively. This improves the best known dependence in ϵ as well as the joint dependence betweennand 1/ϵ. Technically, our quantum algorithms combine quantum singular value transformation, quantum annealing, and variable-time amplitude estimation. We believe that our algorithm framework is of general interest and has wide applications.
We describe a quantum algorithm to estimate the α-Renyi entropy of an unknown density matrix ρ∈Cd×d for α≠1 by combining the recent technique of quantum singular value transformations with the method of estimating normalized traces in the one clean qubit model. We consider an oracular input model where the input state is prepared via a quantum oracle that outputs a purified version of the state, assumed to be nonsingular. Our method outputs an estimate of the α-Renyi entropy to additive precision ϵ, using an expected total number O(1(xϵ)2) of independent applications of a quantum circuit which coherently queries the input unitary O(1δlogdϵ) times, in each case measuring a single output qubit. Here δ is a lower cutoff on the smallest eigenvalue of ρ and x=1dTr(ρα). The expected number of measurements made in this method can be compared to results in the sample complexity model that generally require Θ(d2ϵ2) samples. Furthermore, we also show that multiplicative approximations can be obtained by iteratively using additive approximations, with an overhead logarithmic in the dimension d.
Entropy estimation of discrete probability distributions is a fundamental problem in statistical inference and quantum property estimation. In this paper, we study the problem of estimating Rényi entropy Hα(p) for any distribution p=(pi)i=1n given its purified quantum query-access. For non-integer α>1, our algorithm estimates Hα(p) to within additive error ε using only O(nmax{1/2,1−1/α}/ε) queries, which improves the best known upper bound for dependence on both n and 1/ε. For 0<α<1, our algorithm has query complexity O(n1/(2α)/εmax{1,1/(2α)}), which improves the dependence on 1/ε of the current best upper bound without incresing its n dependence. Our approach adapts the multi-level estimation framework to relative approximation of the power sums and leverage binary search to remove the requirement of prior knowledge of them. We also strengthen the precision-dependent lower bound to Ω(1/εmax{1,1/(2α)}) for 0<α<1, which identifies the optimal precision dependence of our algorithm.
Estimation of Shannon and Rényi entropies of unknown discrete distributions is a fundamental problem in statistical property testing. In this paper, we give the first quantum algorithms for estimating α-Rényi entropies (Shannon entropy being 1-Rényi entropy). In particular, we demonstrate a quadratic quantum speedup for Shannon entropy estimation and a generic quantum speedup for α-Rényi entropy estimation for all α ≥ 0 values, including tight bounds for the Shannon entropy, the Hartley entropy (α = 0), and the collision entropy (α = 2). We also provide quantum upper bounds for estimating min-entropy (α = +∞) as well as the Kullback-Leibler divergence. We complement our results with quantum lower bounds on α-Rényi entropy estimation for all α ≥ 0 values. Our approach is inspired by the pioneering work of Bravyi, Harrow, and Hassidim (BHH); however, with many new technical ingredients: 1) we improve the error dependence of the BHH framework by a fine-tuned error analysis together with Montanaro's approach to estimating the expected output of quantum subroutines for α = 0, 1; 2) we develop a procedure, similar to cooling schedules in simulated annealing, for general α ≥ 0, and 3) in the cases of integer α ≥ 2 and α = +∞, we reduce the entropy estimation problem to the α-distinctness and [log n]-distinctness problems, respectively.
We propose a quantum multi-level estimation framework for a functional ∑i=1nf(pi) of a discrete distribution (pi)i=1n. We partition the values pi into logarithmically many intervals whose length decays exponentially. For each interval, we perform non-destructive singular value discrimination to isolate the relevant pi, enabling adaptive estimation of the partial sum over this interval. Unlike previous variable-time approaches, our method avoids high control overhead and requires only constant extra ancilla qubits. As an application, we present efficient quantum estimators for the q-Tsallis entropy of discrete distributions. Specifically: (i) For q>1, we obtain a near-optimal quantum algorithm with query complexity Θ~(1/εmax{1/(2(q−1)),1}), improving the prior best O(1/ε1+1/(q−1)) due to Liu and Wang (SODA 2025; IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 2026). (ii) For 0<q<1, we obtain a quantum algorithm with query complexity O~(n1/q−1/2/ε1/q), exhibiting a quantum speedup over the near-optimal classical estimators due to Jiao, Venkat, Han, and Weissman (IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 2017). Our results achieve, to our knowledge, the first near-optimal quantum estimators for parameterized q-entropy for non-integer q.
Entropy is a measure of the randomness of a system. Estimating the entropy of a quantum state is a basic problem in quantum information. In this paper, we introduce a time-efficient quantum approach to estimating the von Neumann entropyS(ρ) and Rényi entropySα(ρ) of anN-dimensional quantum state ρ, given access to independent samples of ρ. Specifically, we provide the following quantum estimators. • A quantum estimator forS(ρ) with time complexity Õ (N2),1improving the prior best time complexity Õ(N6) by Acharya, Issa, Shende, and Wagner (2020) and Bavarian, Mehraba, and Wright (2016). • A quantum estimator forSα(ρ) with time complexity Õ (N4/α−2) for 0N4−2/α) for α > 1, improving the prior best time complexity Õ(N6/α) for 0N6) for α > 1 by Acharya, Issa, Shende, and Wagner (2020), though at a cost of a slightly larger sample complexity. Moreover, these estimators are naturally extensible to the low-rank case. We also provide a sample lower bound Ω(max{N/ε,N1/α−1/ε1/α}) for estimatingSα(ρ). Technically, our method is quite different from the previous ones that are based on weak Schur sampling and Young diagrams. At the heart of our construction, is a novel tool calledsamplizer, which can “samplize” a quantum query algorithm to a quantum algorithm with similar behavior using only samples of quantum states; this suggests a new framework for estimating quantum entropies. Specifically, when a quantum oracleUblockencodes a mixed quantum state ρ, any quantum query algorithm usingQqueries toUcan be samplized to a δ-close (in the diamond norm) quantum algorithm using Θ(Q2/δ) samples of ρ. Moreover, this samplization is proven to be optimal, up to a polylogarithmic factor.
Estimating statistical properties of probability distributions is a fundamental problem in statistics and theoretical computer science. We develop quantum algorithms for estimating the q-Tsallis entropy HqTsa(P)=1−q∑i=1npiq−1 when 0<q<1, given purified quantum query access to a distribution P on [n]. When 0<q≤21, we provide a quantum algorithm with query complexity $\widetilde{O}\rbra{\left(\frac{n}{\varepsilon}\right)^{\frac{1}{2q}}}$, which is optimal up to polylogarithmic factors. When 21<q<1, we introduce a two-stage simultaneous probability estimation procedure, yielding a quantum algorithm with query complexity O(ε2q1n21+2q1+εn1−q), which improves the result given by Chen et al. (ICALP 2026) when $\varepsilon=O\rbra{n^{1-2q}}$.