One of the most important quantum algorithms ever discovered is Grover's algorithm for searching an unordered set. We give a new lower bound in the query model which proves that Grover's algorithm is exactly optimal. Similar to existing methods for proving lower bounds, we bound the amount of information we can gain from a single oracle query, but we bound this information in terms of angles. This allows our proof to be simple, self-contained, based on only elementary mathematics, capturing our intuition, while obtaining at the same time an exact bound.
One of the most important quantum algorithms ever discovered is Grover's algorithm for searching an unordered set. We give a new lower bound in the query model which proves that Grover's algorithm is exactly optimal. Similar to existing methods for proving lower bounds, we bound the amount of information we can gain from a single oracle query, but we bound this information in terms of angles. This allows our proof to be simple, self-contained, based on only elementary mathematics, capturing our intuition, while obtaining at the same time an exact bound.
In the first part of the thesis we construct a new, simple framework which amplifies to a constant the success probability of any abstract search algorithm. The total query complexity is given by the quantum hitting time of the resulting operator, which we show that it is of the same order as the quantum hitting time of the original algorithm. As a major application of our framework, we show that for any reversible walk
P and a single marked state, the quantum walk corresponding to
P can find the solution using a number of queries that is quadratically smaller than the classical hitting time of
P. Our algorithm is more general and simpler to implement than the solution known previously in the literature (Krovi, Magniez, Ozols, and Roland, 2015), which was developed specifically for quantum walks; we also prove that, for the particular case of quantum walks, we can embed their algorithm into our framework, thus simulating it exactly. Finally, we show that we can implement amplitude amplification using our tool. In the second part of the thesis we give a new lower bound in the query model which proves that Grover's algorithm for unordered searching is exactly optimal. Similar to existing methods for proving lower bounds, we bound the amount of information we can gain from a single oracle query, but we bound this information in terms of angles. This allows our proof to be simple, self-contained, based on only elementary mathematics, capturing our intuition, while obtaining at the same an exact bound. We then turn our attention to non-adaptive algorithms for the same problem of searching an unordered set. In this model, we obtain a lower bound and we give an algorithm which matches the lower bound, thus showing that the lower bound is exactly optimal.
While powerful tools have been developed to analyze quantum query complexity, there are still many natural problems that do not fit neatly into the black box model of oracles. We create a new model that allows multiple oracles with differing costs. This model captures more of the difficulty of certain natural problems. We test this model on a simple problem, Search with Two Oracles, for which we create a quantum algorithm that we prove is asymptotically optimal. We further give some evidence, using a geometric picture of Grover's algorithm, that our algorithm is exactly optimal.
While powerful tools have been developed to analyze quantum query complexity, there are still many natural problems that do not fit neatly into the black box model of oracles. We create a new model that allows multiple oracles with differing costs. This model captures more of the difficulty of certain natural problems. We test this model on a simple problem, Search with Two Oracles, for which we create a quantum algorithm that we prove is asymptotically optimal. We further give some evidence, using a geometric picture of Grover's algorithm, that our algorithm is exactly optimal.
While powerful tools have been developed to analyze quantum query complexity, there are still many natural problems that do not fit neatly into the black box model of oracles. We create a new model that allows multiple oracles with differing costs. This model captures more of the difficulty of certain natural problems. We test this model on a simple problem, Search with Two Oracles, for which we create a quantum algorithm that we prove is asymptotically optimal. We further give some evidence, using a geometric picture of Grover's algorithm, that our algorithm is exactly optimal.