The Bernstein-Vazirani (BV) algorithm offers exceptional accuracy in finding the hidden bit string of a function. We explore how the algorithm performs in real-world situations where noise can potentially interfere with its performance. In order to assess the impact of imperfect equipments, we introduce various forms of glassy disorders into the effect of the Hadamard gates used in the Bernstein-Vazirani circuit. We incorporated disorders of five different forms, viz., Haar-uniform with finite cutoff, spherical Gaussian, discrete circular, spherical Cauchy-Lorentz, and squeezed. We find that the effectiveness of the algorithm decreases with increasing disorder strength in all cases. Additionally, we demonstrate that as the number of bits in the secret string increases, the success probability of correctly guessing the string becomes increasingly insensitive to the type of disorder and instead depends only on the mean and spread of the disorder. We compare our results with the performance of the analogous classical algorithm in the presence of similar noise. When the length of the secret string is small or moderate, the quantum BV algorithm is found to be more efficient compared to the classical algorithm for almost all types of disorders under consideration, unless the strength of the disorder is very high and the disorder follows a discrete circular distribution. However, if we move to extremely large secret strings, the success probability of the disordered BV algorithm merges with the success probability of the disordered classical algorithm for all considered disorders having arbitrary strengths. The limit on the length of the string after which the efficiency of the quantum algorithm becomes equivalent to the classical algorithm depends on the amount of disorder and not on the type of disorder.
The Bernstein-Vazirani (BV) algorithm offers exceptional accuracy in finding the hidden bit string of a function. We explore how the algorithm performs in real-world situations where noise can potentially interfere with its performance. In order to assess the impact of imperfect equipments, we introduce various forms of glassy disorders into the effect of the Hadamard gates used in the Bernstein-Vazirani circuit. We incorporated disorders of five different forms, viz., Haar-uniform with finite cutoff, spherical Gaussian, discrete circular, spherical Cauchy-Lorentz, and squeezed. We find that the effectiveness of the algorithm decreases with increasing disorder strength in all cases. Additionally, we demonstrate that as the number of bits in the secret string increases, the success probability of correctly guessing the string becomes increasingly insensitive to the type of disorder and instead depends only on the mean and spread of the disorder. We compare our results with the performance of the analogous classical algorithm in the presence of similar noise. When the length of the secret string is small or moderate, the quantum BV algorithm is found to be more efficient compared to the classical algorithm for almost all types of disorders under consideration, unless the strength of the disorder is very high and the disorder follows a discrete circular distribution. However, if we move to extremely large secret strings, the success probability of the disordered BV algorithm merges with the success probability of the disordered classical algorithm for all considered disorders having arbitrary strengths. The limit on the length of the string after which the efficiency of the quantum algorithm becomes equivalent to the classical algorithm depends on the amount of disorder and not on the type of disorder.
Naseri et al. [Phys. Rev. A 106, 062429 (2022); arXiv:2205.13610] studied which quantum resources in initial states are essential for the probabilistic Bernstein-Vazirani (BV) algorithm, defining its performance as the optimal average success probability over all measurements. In this work, we consider a variant of BV algorithm, which is called the initialization-free (IF) BV algorithm, in which an arbitrary ancilla state as the oracle register is allowed, to improve the performance. We derive an explicit formula for the performance of the probabilistic IF-BV algorithm and obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for an initial state to achieve maximal performance. We further prove that, under a suitable ordering assumption on the coefficients of the initial state, the probabilistic IF-BV algorithm outperforms the standard probabilistic BV algorithm.
Quantum algorithms can outperform their classical counterparts in various tasks, the most prominent example being Shor's algorithm for efficient prime factorization on a quantum computer. It is clear that one of the reasons for the speedup is the superposition principle of quantum mechanics, which allows a quantum processor to be in a superposition of different states at the same time. While such a superposition can lead to entanglement across different qubits of the processors, there also exist quantum algorithms that outperform classical ones using superpositions of individual qubits without entangling them. As an example, the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm allows one to determine a bit string encoded into an oracle. While the classical version of the algorithm requires multiple calls of the oracle to learn the bit string, a single query of the oracle is enough in the quantum case. In this article, we analyze in detail the quantum resources in the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm. For this, we introduce and study its probabilistic version, where the goal is to guess the bit string after a single call of the oracle. We show that in the absence of entanglement, the performance of the algorithm is directly related to the amount of quantum coherence in the initial state. We further demonstrate that a large amount of entanglement in the initial state prevents the algorithm from achieving optimal performance. We also apply our methods to quantum computation with mixed states, proving that pseudopure states achieve optimal performance for a given purity in the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm. We further investigate quantum resources in the one clean qubit model, showing that the model can exhibit speedup over any known classical algorithm even with an arbitrarily little amount of multipartite entanglement, general quantum correlations, and coherence.
The complexity of certain classical computer algorithms can be reduced by a quantum algorithm completing the same task. We examine the implementation of the Bernstein–Vazirani algorithm. It finds the hidden n-bit string s from the function fs(x)=sx that takes an n-bit input string x and outputs one bit, the dot product. This algorithm reduces the complexity from n queries for the best classical algorithm to just one. Though the quantum algorithm theoretically always gives the correct string, in practice, factors such as decoherence of the physical qubits due to external noise reduce the algorithm’s accuracy. By implementing the algorithm on the IBM 5-qubit and 14-qubit quantum computers, we are able to analyze correlations between the accuracy of the results and the properties of the physical qubits used. Not all qubits are pairwise connected, nor do they have the same coherence times. Using Python to build the quantum circuits, we create several implementations of the circuit with different qubits. We establish that 1/T1, 1/T2, and gate errors are positively correlated with calculation errors. Consequently, we observe that the 14-qubit quantum computer, on average, is more prone to errors than the 5-qubit quantum computer.
Quantum computers promise to redefine the boundaries of computational science, offering the potential for exponential speedups in solving complex problems across chemistry, optimization, and materials science. Yet, their practical utility remains constrained by unpredictable performance degradation under real-world noise conditions. A key question is how problem structure itself influences algorithmic resilience. In this work, we present a comprehensive, hardware-aware benchmarking study of the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm across 11 diverse test patterns on multiple superconducting quantum processors, revealing that algorithmic performance is exquisitely sensitive to problem structure. Our results reveal average success rates of 100.0\% (ideal simulation), 85.2\% (noisy emulation), and 26.4\% (real hardware), representing a dramatic 58.8\% average performance gap between noisy emulation and real hardware execution. With quantum state tomography confirming corresponding average state fidelities of 0.993, 0.760, and a 0.234 fidelity drop to hardware. Performance degrades dramatically from 75.7\% success for sparse patterns to complete failure for high-density 10-qubit patterns. Most strikingly, quantum state tomography reveals a near-perfect correlation between pattern density and state fidelity degradation, providing the fundamental explanation for observed performance patterns. The catastrophic fidelity collapse observed in real hardware measurements -- dropping to 0.111 compared to the predicted 0.763 -- underscores severe limitations in current noise models for capturing structure-dependent error mechanisms. Our work establishes pattern-dependent performance as a critical consideration for quantum algorithm deployment and provides a quantitative framework for predicting algorithm feasibility in practical applications.
We investigate the response to noise, in the form of glassy disorder present in circuit elements, in the success probability of the quantum phase estimation algorithm, a subroutine used to determine the eigenvalue - a phase - corresponding to an eigenvector of a unitary gate. We prove that when a large number of auxiliary qubits are involved in the circuit, the probability does not depend on the actual type of disorder but only on the mean and strength of the disorder. For further analysis, we consider three types of disorder distributions: Haar-uniform with a circular cut-off, Haar-uniform with an elliptical or squeezed cut-off, and spherical normal. There is generally a depreciation of the disorder-averaged success probability in response to the disorder incorporation. Even in the presence of the disorder, increasing the number of auxiliary qubits helps to get a better precision of the phase, albeit to a lesser extent (probability) than that in the clean case. We find a concave to convex transition in the dependence of probability on the strength of disorder, and a log-log dependence is witnessed between the point of inflection and the number of auxiliary qubits used.
Quantum entanglement and coherence are crucial resources in quantum information theory. In some scenarios, however, it is not necessary to directly estimate entanglement or coherence measures to quantify the capabilities of a state in quantum information processing. Instead, fully entangled fraction and coherence fraction are two alternatives for entanglement and coherence in specific quantum tasks. Here, we establish a link between the coherence fraction and the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm, which has several potential applications including cryptography and database search. We show that the success probability of the generalized Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm depends only on the coherence fraction of the initial state rather than its entanglement or coherence. Moreover, we discuss the coherence fraction dynamics and establish a relation between the operator's coherence fraction and the algorithm's success probability. Our findings highlight how quantum coherence fraction influences the efficiency of quantum algorithms.