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arXiv:2311.05624

NP-hard problems are not in BQP

Reiner Czerwinski

Published Jul 10, 2023• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Grover's algorithm can solve NP-complete problems on quantum computers faster than all the known algorithms on classical computers. However, Grover's algorithm still needs exponential time. Due to the BBBV theorem, Grover's algorithm is optimal for searches in the domain of a function, when the function is used as a black box. We analyze the NP-complete set \[\{ (\langle M \rangle, 1^n, 1^t ) \mid \text{ TM }M\text{ accepts an }x\in\{0,1\}^n\text{ within }t\text{ steps}\}.\] If $t$ is large enough, then M accepts each word in $L(M)$ with length $n$ within $t$ steps. So, one can use methods from computability theory to show that black box searching is the fastest way to find a solution. Therefore, Grover's algorithm is optimal for NP-complete problems.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2311.05624

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Grover's algorithm can solve NP-complete problems on quantum computers faster than all the known algorithms on classical computers. However, Grover's algorithm still needs exponential time. Due to the BBBV theorem, Grover's algorithm is optimal for searches in the domain of a function, when the function is used as a black box. We analyze the NP-complete set [{ (\langle M \rangle, 1^n, 1^t ) \mid \text{ TM }M\text{ accepts an }x\in{0,1}^n\text{ within }t\text{ steps}}.] If ttt is large enough, then M accepts each word in L(M)L(M)L(M) with length nnn within ttt steps. So, one can use methods from computability theory to show that black box searching is the fastest way to find a solution. Therefore, Grover's algorithm is optimal for NP-complete problems.
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In this work, we present a multi-layer quantum search method that generates an exponential speedup of the standard Grover's algorithm. As direct applications, any NP problems can be solved efficiently on a quantum circuit with only polynomial gate complexity. In particular, such multi-layer search can solve the factoring problem with an exponential speedup, providing an alternative to Shor's algorithm. Our results show that the exponential speedup of quantum circuits is ubiquitous, and Grover's search is much more powerful than that has been demonstrated. With no contradiction to the quadratic optimality of single-layer query complexity, the great potential of Grover's search is fully released by such multi-layer search design.
The Subset Sum Problem is a member of the NP-complete class, so no known polynomial time algorithm exists for it. Although there are polynomial time approximations and heuristics, these are not always acceptable, yet exact-solution algorithms are unfeasible for large input. Quantum computation offers new insights for not only the Subset Sum Problem but also the entire NP-complete class; most notably, Grover's quantum algorithm for an unstructured database search can be tailored to identify solutions to problems within mathematics and computer science. This paper discusses the physical and conceptual feasibility of quantum computation and demonstrates the utility of quantum search by analyzing the time complexities of the classical dynamic programming algorithm and Grover's algorithm in solving the Subset Sum Problem, evincing the implications this has on the NP-complete class in general.
Grover's search algorithm was originally proposed for circuit-based quantum computers. A crucial part of it is to query an oracle -- a black-box unitary operation. Generation of this oracle is formally beyond the original algorithm design. Here, we propose a realization of Grover's oracle for a large class of searching problems using a quantum annealing step. The time of this step grows only logarithmically with the size of the database. This suggests an efficient path to application of Grover's algorithm to practically important problems, such as finding the ground state of a Hamiltonian with a spectral gap over its ground state.
IntroductionFor a search problem associated with a unsorted database, the remarkable Grover's quantum algorithm (1) provides a quadratic speedup over its classical counterpart.The search problem can be described as follows: for a given function f , there exists one unknown element in the set {0, 1, ..., N -1} that satisfies f (x)=-1, say x = τ, whereas the other N -1o n e sg i v e f (x)=1.How many times of evaluations of f are required to determine the element τ for f (τ)=-1?Through a conventional algorithm, one needs O(N) trials to achieve this aim.How about the utility of quantum algorithm for the search?For the scenario in the quantum world, the search problem can be rephrased in the quantum mechanical language: for a given unitary operator I τ , that is sometimes called the oracle operator, and a set of state vectors (orthonormal basis): s = {|0 , |1 , ..., |N -1 }, I τ |x = |x for all states in the set except I τ |x = -|x for x = τ.H owma n yqueriesofI τ are required to determine |τ ?By Grover's algorithm, one needs only O( √ N) quantum mechanical steps to find the marked state |τ out.It has been shown that Grover's algorithm is optimal since it needs minimal oracle calls to perform a quantum search (2).The quantum searching process will be briefly reviewed as follows.The first step of Grover's algorithm is to prepare a superposition state of all elements with uniform probability amplitude:Then apply the Grover kernel G = -I η I τ to |s ,w h er eI η is a unitary operator and contains no bias against the marked state.For large N,a f t e ra b o u tm = π √ N/4 repetitions of G operations, the probability to observe |τ is close to one, i.e., G m |s ∼ |τ .( 2 ) Since every single G involves one query of I τ ,onlyO( √ N) searching steps are required for a quantum search task.In what follows, we will first investigate on the general SU(2) formulation for the kernel of Grover's searching operator G.The discussions of quantum searching certainty, robustness, and the analog analogue version of the Grover's algorithm will be given afterwards.