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Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion (GECCO Companion)

Evolving quantum computer algorithms

Lee C. Spector

Published Jul 8, 2009• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Computer science will be radically transformed if ongoing efforts to build large-scale quantum computers eventually succeed and if the properties of these computers meet optimistic expectations. Nevertheless, computer scientists still lack a thorough understanding of the power of quantum computing, and it is not always clear how best to utilize the power that is understood. This dilemma exists because quantum algorithms are difficult to grasp and even more difficult to write. Despite large-scale international efforts, only a few important quantum algorithms are documented, leaving many essential questions about the potential of quantum algorithms unanswered. These unsolved problems are ideal challenges for the application of automatic programming technologies. Genetic programming techniques, in particular, have already produced several new quantum algorithms and it is reasonable to expect further discoveries in the future. These methods will help researchers to discover how additional practical problems can be solved using quantum computers, and they will also help to guide theoretical work on both the power and limits of quantum computing. This tutorial will provide an introduction to quantum computing and an introduction to the use of evolutionary computation for automatic quantum computer programming. No background in physics or in evolutionary computation will be assumed. While the primary focus of the tutorial will be on general concepts, specific results will also be presented, including human-competitive results produced by genetic programming. Follow-up material is available from the presenter's book, Automatic Quantum Computer Programming: A Genetic Programming Approach, published by Springer and Kluwer Academic Publishers.

DOI
10.1145/1570256.1570420

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Computer science will be radically transformed if ongoing efforts to build large-scale quantum computers eventually succeed and if the properties of these computers meet optimistic expectations. Nevertheless, computer scientists still lack a thorough understanding of the power of quantum computing, and it is not always clear how best to utilize the power that is understood. This dilemma exists because quantum algorithms are difficult to grasp and even more difficult to write. Despite large-scale international efforts, only a few important quantum algorithms are documented, leaving many essential questions about the potential of quantum algorithms unanswered. These unsolved problems are ideal challenges for the application of automatic programming technologies. Genetic programming techniques, in particular, have already produced several new quantum algorithms and it is reasonable to expect further discoveries in the future. These methods will help researchers to discover how additional practical problems can be solved using quantum computers, and they will also help to guide theoretical work on both the power and limits of quantum computing. This tutorial will provide an introduction to quantum computing and an introduction to the use of evolutionary computation for automatic quantum computer programming. No background in physics or in evolutionary computation will be assumed. While the primary focus of the tutorial will be on general concepts, specific results will also be presented, including human-competitive results produced by genetic programming. Follow-up material is available from the presenter's book, Automatic Quantum Computer Programming: A Genetic Programming Approach, published by Springer and Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Computer science will be radically transformed if ongoing efforts to build large-scale quantum computers eventually succeed and if the properties of these computers meet optimistic expectations. Nevertheless, computer scientists still lack a thorough understanding of the power of quantum computing, and it is not always clear how best to utilize the power that is understood. This dilemma exists because quantum algorithms are difficult to grasp and even more difficult to write. Despite large-scale international efforts, only a few important quantum algorithms are documented, leaving many essential questions about the potential of quantum algorithms unanswered.
This tutorial provides an introduction to quantum computing and to the use of evolutionary computation for automatic quantum computer programming. No prior experience with quantum mechanics or with evolutionary computation will be assumed. While the primary focus of the tutorial will be on general concepts, specific results will also be presented, including human-competitive results produced by genetic programming. Follow-up material is available from the presenter's book, Automatic Quantum Computer Programming: A Genetic Programming Approach, published by Springer and Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Computer science will be radically transformed if ongoing efforts to build large-scale quantum computers eventually succeed and if the properties of these computers meet optimistic expectations. Nevertheless, computer scientists still lack a thorough understanding of the power of quantum computing, and it is not always clear how best to utilize the power that is understood. This dilemma exists because quantum algorithms are difficult to grasp and even more difficult to write. Despite large-scale international efforts, only a few important quantum algorithms are documented, leaving many essential questions about the potential of quantum algorithms unanswered.
Genetic programming can be used to automatically discover algorithms for quantum computers that are more efficient than any classical computer algorithms for the same problems. In this paper we exhibit the first evolved betterthan-classical quantum algorithm, for Deutsch’s “early promise ” problem. We also demonstrate a technique for evolving scalable quantum gate arrays and discuss other issues in the application of genetic programming to quantum computation and vice versa. 1. Quantum Computing Quantum computers are computational devices that use atomic-scale objects, for example 2-state particles, to store and manipulate information (Steane, 1997; for an elementary on-line tutorial see Braunstein, 1995; for an introduction for the general reader see Milburn, 1997). The physics of these devices allows them to do things that common digital (henceforth “classical”) computers cannot. Although quantum computers and classical computers appear to be bound by the same limits of Turing computability, physicists argue that quantum computers can solve certain problems using less resources (time and space) than classical computers are thought to require (Jozsa, 1997). For example, Shor’s quantum algorithm finds the prime factors of an n-digit number in time O(n 3), while the best known classical factoring algorithms
Quantum computers are computational devices that use the dynamics of atomic-scale objects to store and manipulate information.Only a few, small-scale quantum computers have been built to date, but quantum computers can in principle outperform all possible classical computers in significant ways.Quantum computation is therefore a subject of considerable theoretical interest that may also have practical applications in the future.Genetic programming can automatically discover new algorithms for quantum computers [Spector et al., 1998].We describe how to simulate a quantum computer so that the fitness of a quantum algorithm can be determined on classical hardware.We then describe ways in which three different genetic programming approaches can drive the simulator to evolve new quantum algorithms.The approaches are standard tree-based genetic programming, stack-based linear genome genetic programming, and stackless linear genome genetic programming.We demonstrate the techniques on four different problems: the two-bit early promise problem, the scaling majority-on problem, the four-item database search problem, and the two-bit and-or problem.For three of these problems (all but majority-on) the automatically discovered algorithms are more efficient than any possible classical algorithms for the same problems.One of the better-than-classical algorithms (for the two-bit and-or problem) is in fact more efficient than any previously known quantum algorithm for the same problem, suggesting that genetic programming may be a valuable tool in the future study of quantum programming.
Computer science will be radically transformed if ongoing efforts to build large-scale quantum computers eventually succeed and if the properties of these computers meet optimistic expectations. Nevertheless, computer scientists still lack a thorough understanding of the power of quantum computing, and it is not always clear how best to utilize the power that is understood. This dilemma exists because quantum algorithms are difficult to grasp and even more difficult to write. Despite large-scale international efforts, only a few important quantum algorithms are documented, leaving many essential questions about the potential of quantum algorithms unanswered.