Discrete Quantum Walks Hit Exponentially Faster

Julia Kempe

Julia Kempe

We show that the hitting time of the discrete time quantum random walk on the n-bit hypercube from one corner to its opposite is polynomial in n. This gives the first exponential quantum-classical gap in the hitting time of discrete quantum random walks. We provide the framework for quantum hitting time and give two alternative definitions to set the ground for its study on general graphs. We then give an application to random routing.

Anwar Zaman, Rashid Ahmad, Safia Bibi +1 more

Parongama Sen

Adi Makmal, Manran Zhu, Daniel Manzano +2 more

It has been proved by Kempe that discrete quantum walks on the hypercube (HC) hit exponentially faster than the classical analog. The same was also observed numerically by Krovi and Brun for a slightly different property, namely, the expected hitting time. Yet, to what extent this striking result survives in more general graphs is to date an open question. Here, we tackle this question by studying the expected hitting time for quantum walks on HCs that are embedded into larger symmetric structures. By performing numerical simulations of the discrete quantum walk and deriving a general expression for the classical hitting time, we observe an exponentially increasing gap between the expected classical and quantum hitting times, not only for walks on the bare HC, but also for a large family of embedded HCs. This suggests that the quantum speedup is stable with respect to such embeddings.

Norio Konno, Renato Portugal, Iwao Sato +1 more