The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is one of the most successful numerical algorithms of the 20th century and has found numerous applications in many branches of computational science and engineering. The FFT algorithm can be derived from a particular matrix decomposition of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix. In this paper, we show that the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) can be derived by further decomposing the diagonal factors of the FFT matrix decomposition into products of matrices with Kronecker product structure. We analyze the implication of this Kronecker product structure on the discrete Fourier transform of rank-1 tensors on a classical computer. We also explain why such a structure can take advantage of an important quantum computer feature that enables the QFT algorithm to attain an exponential speedup on a quantum computer over the FFT algorithm on a classical computer. Further, the connection between the matrix decomposition of the DFT matrix and a quantum circuit is made. We also discuss a natural extension of a radix-2 QFT decomposition to a radix-d QFT decomposition. No prior knowledge of quantum computing is required to understand what is presented in this paper. Yet, we believe this paper may help readers to gain some rudimentary understanding of the nature of quantum computing from a matrix computation point of view.
The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is one of the most successful numerical algorithms of the 20th century and has found numerous applications in many branches of computational science and engineering. The FFT algorithm can be derived from a particular matrix decomposition of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix. In this paper, we show that the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) can be derived by further decomposing the diagonal factors of the FFT matrix decomposition into products of matrices with Kronecker product structure. We analyze the implication of this Kronecker product structure on the discrete Fourier transform of rank-1 tensors on a classical computer. We also explain why such a structure can take advantage of an important quantum computer feature that enables the QFT algorithm to attain an exponential speedup on a quantum computer over the FFT algorithm on a classical computer. Further, the connection between the matrix decomposition of the DFT matrix and a quantum circuit is made. We also discuss a natural extension of a radix-2 QFT decomposition to a radix-d QFT decomposition. No prior knowledge of quantum computing is required to understand what is presented in this paper. Yet, we believe this paper may help readers to gain some rudimentary understanding of the nature of quantum computing from a matrix computation point of view.
Summary The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is one of the most successful numerical algorithms of the 20th century and has found numerous applications in many branches of computational science and engineering. The FFT algorithm can be derived from a particular matrix decomposition of the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix. In this paper, we show that the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) can be derived by further decomposing the diagonal factors of the FFT matrix decomposition into products of matrices with Kronecker product structure. We analyze the implication of this Kronecker product structure on the discrete Fourier transform of rank‐1 tensors on a classical computer. We also explain why such a structure can take advantage of an important quantum computer feature that enables the QFT algorithm to attain an exponential speedup on a quantum computer over the FFT algorithm on a classical computer. Further, the connection between the matrix decomposition of the DFT matrix and a quantum circuit is made. We also discuss a natural extension of a radix‐2 QFT decomposition to a radix‐d QFT decomposition. No prior knowledge of quantum computing is required to understand what is presented in this paper. Yet, we believe this paper may help readers to gain some rudimentary understanding of the nature of quantum computing from a matrix computation point of view.
The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is the unsung digital workhorse of modern life.It's a clever mathematical shortcut that makes possible the many signals in our device-connected world.Every minute of every video stream, for instance, entails computing some hundreds of FFTs.The FFT's importance to practically every data-processing application in the digital age explains why some researchers have begun exploring how quantum computing can run the FFT algorithm more efficiently still."The fast Fourier transform is an important algorithm that's had lots of applications in the classical world," says Ian Walmsley, physicist at Imperial College London."It also has many applications in the quantum domain.[So] it's important to figure out effective ways to be able to implement it."The first proposed killer app for quantum computers-finding a number's prime factors-was discovered by mathematician Peter Shor at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1994.Shor's algorithm scales up its factorization of numbers more efficiently and rapidly than any classical computer anyone could ever design.And at the heart of Shor's phenomenal quantum engine is a subroutine called-you guessed it-the quantum Fourier transform (QFT).Here is where the terminology gets a little out of hand.There is the QFT at the center of Shor's algorithm, and then there is the QFFT-the quantum fast Fourier transform.They represent different calculations that produce different results, although both are based on the same core mathematical concept, known as the discrete Fourier transform.
The Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT)andQuantumPhaseEstimation (QPE)are twofundamental algorithmic frameworks in quantum computation, and they provide the mathematical basis of many exponential-speedup quan tum algorithms, such as Shor’s factoring algorithm and quantum simulation techniques. In this work we present a detailed theoretical and computational study of the Quantum Fourier Transform and its integration in the Quan tum Phase Estimation. The discussion begins with the linear algebraic structure of the Hilbert spaces, the unitary transformations, and the complex vector representations that enable quantum interference and superposition. The QFT is studied as the unitary transform of computational basis states in the amplitudes in the frequency domain by phase rotations and tensor-product decompositions. The efficient circuit implementation in terms of Hadamard and controlled phase gates of this transform is discussed. The advantage of the transform in terms of polynomial time complexity over the classical discrete Fourier transform in some quantum scenarios is discussed.The QFT is implemented and the Quantum Phase Estimation algorithm is proposed to obtain the eigenphase information of the unitary operators. In the report the mathematical representation of QPE is derived by using the controlled unitary evolution, the inverse Fourier transforms and the measurement theory in finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. We discuss the probabilistic interpretation of phase extraction in detail and the convergence properties of the bi nary phase approximation. We also discuss the relation of QPE to eigenvalue problems in quantum mechanics and its applications to Hamiltonian simulation, quantum chemistry, cryptography, and hidden subgroup prob lems.Implementation aspects of these algorithms are studied using quantum circuit representations and oracle based computation models. We also discuss error sensitivity, qubit precision requirements, decoherence limita tions and practical constraints of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) hardware. The work synthesizes the mathematical foundations, computational complexity analysis and physical realizations of the QFT and the QPE, demonstrating how the Fourier-based quantum transformations provide the essential mechanism underlying modern quantum algorithmic speedups and scalable quantum information processing.
This survey presents a comprehensive analysis of the quantum Fourier transform (QFT), a fundamental tool in quantum computing, in comparison to its classical counterpart, the fast Fourier transform (FFT). The study begins with an introduction to the classical Fourier transform, which is widely used in different disciplines such as signal and image processing. The article introduces the QFT as a quantum version of the Fourier transform, detailing how it leverages quantum parallelism and superposition to reduce the time complexity of the operation, and highlighting its crucial role in quantum algorithms like Shor’s algorithm for integer factorization. The analysis also addresses the mathematical foundations of the QFT, its implementation in quantum circuits, and the key advantages and challenges associated with its use, such as measurement precision and quantum decoherence. Finally, it concludes with an exploration of the current and potential applications of QFT in quantum computing.
Abstract We propose an implementation of the algorithm for the fast Fourier transform (FFT) as a quantum circuit consisting of a combination of some quantum gates. In our implementation, a data sequence is expressed by a tensor product of vector spaces. Namely, our FFT is defined as a transformation of the tensor product of quantum states. It is essentially different from the so-called quantum Fourier transform (QFT) defined to be a linear transformation of the amplitudes for the superposition of quantum states. The quantum circuit for the FFT consists of several circuits for elementary arithmetic operations such as a quantum adder, subtractor and shift operations, which are implemented as effectively as possible. Namely, our circuit does not generate any garbage bits. The advantages of our method compared to the QFT are its high versatility, and data storage efficiency in terms, for instance, of the quantum image processing.
The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is central to the analysis of uniformly sampled signals, yet many practical applications involve non-uniform sampling, requiring the Non-Uniform Discrete Fourier Transform (NUDFT). While quantum algorithms for the standard DFT are well established, a corresponding framework for the non-uniform case remains underdeveloped. This work introduces a quantum algorithm for the Non-Uniform Quantum Fourier Transform (NUQFT) based on a low-rank factorization of the NUDFT matrix. The factorization is translated into an explicit quantum construction using block encodings, Quantum Signal Processing, and the Linear Combination of Unitaries framework, yielding an ε-accurate block encoding of the NUDFT matrix with controlled approximation error from both classical truncation and quantum implementation. Under standard oracle access assumptions for non-uniform sampling points, we derive explicit, non-asymptotic gate-level resource estimates. The resulting complexity scales polylogarithmically with target precision, quadratically with the number of qubits through the quantum Fourier transform, and logarithmically with a geometry-dependent conditioning parameter induced by the non-uniform grid. This establishes a concrete and resource-efficient quantum analogue of the NUDFT and provides a foundation for quantum algorithms on irregularly sampled data.