We study the computational complexity of quantum state isomorphism problems under group actions: given two quantum circuits that prepare pure or mixed states, decide whether the two states are related by a group action. This can be seen as a quantum state version of the Hidden Shift Problem, in much the same way that the State Hidden Subgroup Problem is a quantum version of the ordinary Hidden Subgroup Problem.
We prove several results for this computational problem:
- For the pure-state version, we show that the problem is BQP-hard for all nontrivial groups, and contained in QCMA $\cap$ QCSZK. We further obtain refined results for specific groups of interest: for abelian groups we show that the problem reduces to the state hidden subgroup problem over the generalized dihedral group; for the Clifford group, the problem is at least as hard as Graph Isomorphism under polynomial-time reductions; for the Pauli group it is BQP-complete.
- For the mixed-state version, for nontrivial, finite and efficiently representable groups, the problem is QSZK-complete.
- We also study a variant of this problem over an infinite group, in particular, the bosonic linear optical unitaries. We show that in the setting where the classical description of the quantum state is given in a suitable wave function representation known as the stellar representation, the problem is at least as hard as Graph Isomorphism, and is contained in NP $\cap$ SZK.
Prior to our work, state isomorphism problems had only been studied for the symmetric group [LG17]. As a consequence of our results, we resolve an open question posed in [HEC25] about the existence of a quantum algorithm for the abelian state hidden subgroup problem on mixed states. We show that this problem is QSZK-hard in the worst case, thereby ruling out an efficient quantum algorithm unless QSZK = BQP.
Comments
Updated definition of PSGI to a more natural version which ignores global phase; updated proofs to fit this new definition
We study the computational complexity of quantum state isomorphism problems under group actions: given two quantum circuits that prepare pure or mixed states, decide whether the two states are related by a group action. This can be seen as a quantum state version of the Hidden Shift Problem, in much the same way that the State Hidden Subgroup Problem is a quantum version of the ordinary Hidden Subgroup Problem.
We prove several results for this computational problem:
For the pure-state version, we show that the problem is BQP-hard for all nontrivial groups, and contained in QCMA ∩ QCSZK. We further obtain refined results for specific groups of interest: for abelian groups we show that the problem reduces to the state hidden subgroup problem over the generalized dihedral group; for the Clifford group, the problem is at least as hard as Graph Isomorphism under polynomial-time reductions; for the Pauli group it is BQP-complete.
For the mixed-state version, for nontrivial, finite and efficiently representable groups, the problem is QSZK-complete.
We also study a variant of this problem over an infinite group, in particular, the bosonic linear optical unitaries. We show that in the setting where the classical description of the quantum state is given in a suitable wave function representation known as the stellar representation, the problem is at least as hard as Graph Isomorphism, and is contained in NP ∩ SZK.
Prior to our work, state isomorphism problems had only been studied for the symmetric group [LG17]. As a consequence of our results, we resolve an open question posed in [HEC25] about the existence of a quantum algorithm for the abelian state hidden subgroup problem on mixed states. We show that this problem is QSZK-hard in the worst case, thereby ruling out an efficient quantum algorithm unless QSZK = BQP.
Several early quantum algorithms, including Simon's algorithm and Shor's period-finding are instances of the hidden subgroup problem (HSP) over finite abelian groups. No polynomial-time quantum algorithm is known for the HSP over arbitrary non-abelian finite groups. The non-Abelian case is of particular interest because some instances, such as the dihedral and symmetric group HSPs, are connected to lattice problems and graph isomorphism, respectively.
In this work, we give polynomial-time quantum algorithms for two further families containing non-Abelian groups. First, we consider groups of the form G=A⋊φZpk, with A finite Abelian, p prime, k∈N and the action of Zpk is generated by the scalar automorphism a↦μa, for some μ∈ZExp(A)×, where Exp(A) is the exponent of A. Our algorithm is efficient when A has bounded generator rank and Exp(A)/p=polylog(∣G∣). This includes the case A=ZN for N∈N and k=1, studied by Bacon, Childs and van Dam (FOCS 2005), and A=Zqr with q prime and r∈N studied by van Dam and Dey (TQC 2014). Second, we give a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for finite quasi-Hamiltonian groups under a mild assumption on the input structure. Quasi-Hamiltonian groups are finite nilpotent groups with modular subgroup lattice, or equivalently the finite groups in which every subgroup is permutable. As far as we know, this is the first quantum algorithm to exploit the modularity of the subgroup lattice for solving the HSP. This extends, under the aforementioned structured input assumption, the quantum algorithm for Dedekind groups given by Hallgren, Russell, and Ta-Shma (SIAM J. Comput. 32, 2003).
Quantum algorithms are powerful tools for finding symmetries of classical objects, most famously through Shor's algorithm and the Hidden Subgroup Problem (HSP). In this work, we study quantum algorithms for learning symmetries of \emph{quantum} objects. Existing work in this area centres on the recently introduced State Hidden Subgroup Problem (StateHSP), a quantum generalisation of HSP in which the task is to learn the symmetry subgroup of a quantum state. We develop efficient quantum algorithms for non-abelian StateHSP when the hidden subgroup is normal and the ambient group belongs to a broad class of non-abelian groups, extending the previous general theory beyond the abelian setting.
StateHSP learns \emph{Bose} symmetries, under which a state must be invariant exactly under the action of the symmetry group. In quantum mechanics, however, physically equivalent pure states are defined only up to global phase. Motivated by this, we introduce a natural notion of \emph{Anyonic} state symmetry learning, based on invariance up to global phase. We give an efficient quantum algorithm by reducing the problem to StateHSP, where the reduction rests on a new correspondence between linearisations of projective representations and linear error-correcting codes. As an application, we obtain an improved algorithm for learning stabiliser groups of mixed qudit states of arbitrary local dimension. Finally, we introduce symmetry learning problems for other quantum objects, including unitaries, Hamiltonians, and finite collections of states, and give efficient algorithms for them by reduction to state symmetry learning. Together, these results broaden the scope of state symmetry learning as a common algorithmic primitive for learning quantum symmetries.
The Hidden Subgroup Problem (HSP) is a computational problem which includes as special cases integer factorization, the discrete logarithm problem, graph isomorphism, and the shortest vector problem. The celebrated polynomial-time quantum algorithms for factorization and the discrete logarithm are restricted versions of a generic polynomial-time quantum solution to the HSP for abelian groups, but despite focused research no polynomial-time solution for general groups has yet been found. We propose a generalization of the HSP to include arbitrary algebraic structures and analyze this new problem on powers of 2-element algebras. We prove a complete classification of every such power as quantum tractable (i.e. polynomial-time), classically tractable, quantum intractable, or classically intractable. In particular, we identify a class of algebras for which the generalized HSP exhibits super-polynomial speedup on a quantum computer compared to a classical one.
We study the computational complexity of the HIDDEN SUBGROUP problem, a well-studied problem in quantum computing. First we show that several proposed generalizations or variants of this problem, including HIDDEN COSET, HIDDEN SHIFT, and ORBIT COSET, are all equivalent or reducible to HIDDEN SUBGROUP. Then we study the relationship between the decision version and search version of HIDDEN SUBGROUP over various group classes. We show that the two versions are polynomial-time equivalent over permutation groups, and over dihedral groups given the order of the group is smooth. Finally, we give nonadaptive program checkers for HIDDEN SUBGROUP and its decision version.
Quantum computers are expected to be able to outperform classical computers. In fact, some computational problems such as integer factorization can be solved on quantum computers substantially faster than classical computers. Interestingly, these problems can be cast in a framework of the hidden symmetry subgroup problem. However, only a few of quantum algorithms for efficiently solving this problem have been known, and the approaches used in all previous results can be applied to particular groups with specific group actions. In this paper, we introduce new technique for solving the hidden symmetry subgroup problem which can be applicable for any groups and any group actions with a certain condition. In addition, we define the continuous hidden symmetry subgroup problem on a group by employing a continuous oracle function, and prove that if the group is a metric space and the group action satisfies some condition, then the continuous hidden symmetry subgroup problem can be efficiently reduced to the continuous hidden subgroup problem. In particular, we show that there exists an efficient quantum algorithm to solve the continuous hidden symmetry subgroup problem onRn, while it has not yet been shown that the original hidden symmetry subgroup problem onRncan be efficiently solved by a quantum computer.
While efficient algorithms are known for solving many important problems related to groups, no efficient algorithm is known for determining whether two arbitrary groups are isomorphic. The particular case of 2-nilpotent groups, a special type of central extension, is widely believed to contain the essential hard cases. However, looking specifically at central extensions, the natural formulation of being "the same" is not isomorphism but rather "equivalence," which requires an isomorphism to preserves the structure of the extension. In this paper, we show that equivalence of central extensions can be computed efficiently on a classical computer when the groups are small enough to be given by their multiplication tables. However, in the model of black box groups, which allows the groups to be much larger, we show that equivalence can be computed efficiently on a quantum computer but not a classical one (under common complexity assumptions). Our quantum algorithm demonstrates a new application of the hidden subgroup problem for general abelian groups.