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RAIRO - Theoretical Informatics and Applications

Superiority of one-way and realtime quantum machines

Abuzer Yakaryılmaz

Published Oct 1, 2012• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In automata theory, quantum computation has been widely examined for finite state machines, known as quantum finite automata (QFAs), and less attention has been given to QFAs augmented with counters or stacks. In this paper, we focus on such generalizations of QFAs where the input head operates in one-way or realtime mode, and present some new results regarding their superiority over their classical counterparts. Our first result is about the nondeterministic acceptance mode: Each quantum model architecturally intermediate between realtime finite state automaton and one-way pushdown automaton (one-way finite automaton, realtime and one-way finite automata with one-counter, and realtime pushdown automaton) is superior to its classical counterpart. The second and third results are about bounded error language recognition: for any k > 0, QFAs with k blind counters outperform their deterministic counterparts; and, a one-way QFA with a single head recognizes an infinite family of languages, which can be recognized by one-way probabilistic finite automata with at least two heads. Lastly, we compare the nondeterminictic and deterministic acceptance modes for classical finite automata with k blind counter(s), and we show that for any k > 0, the nondeterministic models outperform the deterministic ones.

DOI
10.1051/ita/2012018

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In automata theory, quantum computation has been widely examined for finite state machines, known as quantum finite automata (QFAs), and less attention has been given to QFAs augmented with counters or stacks. In this paper, we focus on such generalizations of QFAs where the input head operates in one-way or realtime mode, and present some new results regarding their superiority over their classical counterparts. Our first result is about the nondeterministic acceptance mode: Each quantum model architecturally intermediate between realtime finite state automaton and one-way pushdown automaton (one-way finite automaton, realtime and one-way finite automata with one-counter, and realtime pushdown automaton) is superior to its classical counterpart. The second and third results are about bounded error language recognition: for any k > 0, QFAs with k blind counters outperform their deterministic counterparts; and, a one-way QFA with a single head recognizes an infinite family of languages, which can be recognized by one-way probabilistic finite automata with at least two heads. Lastly, we compare the nondeterminictic and deterministic acceptance modes for classical finite automata with k blind counter(s), and we show that for any k > 0, the nondeterministic models outperform the deterministic ones.
In automata theory, the quantum computation has been widely examined for finite state machines, known as quantum finite automata (QFAs), and less attention has been given to the QFAs augmented with counters or stacks. Moreover, to our knowledge, there is no result related to QFAs having more than one input head. In this paper, we focus on such generalizations of QFAs whose input head(s) operate(s) in one-way or realtime mode and present many superiority of them to their classical counterparts. Furthermore, we propose some open problems and conjectures in order to investigate the power of quantumness better. We also give some new results on classical computation.
We show that one-way quantum one-counter automaton with zero-error is more powerful than its probabilistic counterpart on promise problems. Then, we obtain a similar separation result between Las Vegas one-way probabilistic one-counter automaton and one-way deterministic one-counter automaton. We also obtain new results on classical counter automata regarding language recognition. It was conjectured that one-way probabilistic one blind-counter automata cannot recognize Kleene closure of equality language [A. Yakaryilmaz: Superiority of one-way and realtime quantum machines. RAIRO - Theor. Inf. and Applic. 46(4): 615-641 (2012)]. We show that this conjecture is false, and also show several separation results for blind/non-blind counter automata.
In this thesis, we introduce a new quantum Turing machine (QTM) model that supports general quantum operators, together with its pushdown, counter, and finite automaton variants, and examine the computational power of classical and quantum machines using small space bounds in many different cases. The main contributions are summarized below. Firstly, we consider QTMs in the unbounded error setting: (i) in some cases of sublogarithmic space bounds, the class of languages recognized by QTMs is shown to be strictly larger than that of classical ones; (ii) in constant space bounds, the same result can still be obtained for restricted QTMs; (iii) the complete characterization of the class of languages recognized by realtime constant space nondeterministic QTMs is given. Secondly, we consider constant space-bounded QTMs in the bounded error setting: (i) we introduce a new type of quantum and probabilistic finite automata (QFAs and PFAs, respectively,) with a special two-way input head which is not allowed to be stationary or move to the left but has the capability to reset itself to its starting position; (ii) the computational power of this type of quantum machine is shown to be superior to that of the probabilistic machine; (iii) based on these models, two-way PFAs and two-way classical-head QFAs are shown to be more succinct than two-way nondeterministic finite automata and their one-way variants; (iv) we also introduce PFAs and QFAs with postselection with their bounded error language classes, and give many characterizations of them. Thirdly, the computational power of realtime QFAs augmented with a write-only memory is investigated by showing many simulation results for different kinds of counter automata. Finally, some lower bounds of realtime classical Turing machines in order to recognize a nonregular language are shown to be tight.
1-way multihead quantum finite state automata (1QFA(k)) can be thought of modified version of 1-way quantum finite state automata (1QFA) and k-letter quantum finite state automata (k-letter QFA) respectively. It has been shown by Moore and Crutchfield as well as Konadacs and Watrous that 1QFA can’t accept all regular language. In this paper, we show different language recognizing capabilities of our model 1-way multihead QFAs. New results presented in this paper are the following ones: 1) We show that newly introduced 1-way 2-head quantum finite state automaton (1QFA(2)) structure can accept all unary regular languages. 2) A language which can’t be accepted by 1-way deterministic 2-head finite state automaton (1DFA((2)) can be accepted by 1QFA(2) with bounded error. 3) 1QFA(2) is more powerful than 1-way reversible 2-head finite state automaton (1RMFA(2)) with respect to recognition of language.
In general, quantum computation models are expected to be more powerful than classical counterparts. However, sometimes this is not the case.It is known that there exists some regular language which one-way quantum finite automata and one-way quantum counter automata cannot recognize. This is due to the restriction of reversibility which quantum models must satisfy. Thus, it is an interesting question: what kinds of quantum models suffer from/overcome the restriction? To tackle this problem, we focus on (empty-stack acceptance) one-way quantum pushdown automata, and show that there exists a regular language which one-way quantum pushdown automata cannot recognize. This implies adding a stack to one-way finite automata cannot overcome the restriction of reversibility if we adopt empty-stack acceptance as the acceptance mode.
The question of whether quantum real-time one-counter automata (rtQ1CAs) can outperform their probabilistic counterparts has been open for more than a decade. We provide an affirmative answer to this question, by demonstrating a non-context-free language that can be recognized with perfect soundness by a rtQ1CA. This is the first demonstration of the superiority of a quantum model to the corresponding classical one in the real-time case with an error bound less than 1. We also introduce a generalization of the rtQ1CA, the quantum one-way one-counter automaton (1Q1CA), and show that they too are superior to the corresponding family of probabilistic machines. For this purpose, we provide general definitions of these models that reflect the modern approach to the definition of quantum finite automata, and point out some problems with previous results. We identify several remaining open problems.