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Symmetry

Improving Quantum Search on Simple Graphs by Pretty Good Structured Oracles

Matteo G. A. Paris, Claudia Benedetti, Stefano Olivares

Published Jan 7, 2021• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum search algorithms provide a way to speed up combinatorial search, and have found several applications in modern quantum technology. In particular, spatial search on graphs, based on continuous-time quantum walks (CTQW), represents a promising platform for the implementation of quantum search in condensed matter systems. CTQW-based algorithms, however, work exactly on complete graphs, while they are known to perform poorly on realistic graphs with low connectivity. In this paper, we put forward an alternative search algorithm, based on structuring the oracle operator, which allows one to improve the localization properties of the walker by tuning only the on-site energies of the graph, i.e., without altering its topology. As such, the proposed algorithm is suitable for implementation in systems with low connectivity, e.g., rings of quantum dots or superconducting circuits. Oracle parameters are determined by Hamiltonian constraints, without the need for numerical optimization.

DOI
10.3390/sym13010096

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Quantum search algorithms provide a way to speed up combinatorial search, and have found several applications in modern quantum technology. In particular, spatial search on graphs, based on continuous-time quantum walks (CTQW), represents a promising platform for the implementation of quantum search in condensed matter systems. CTQW-based algorithms, however, work exactly on complete graphs, while they are known to perform poorly on realistic graphs with low connectivity. In this paper, we put forward an alternative search algorithm, based on structuring the oracle operator, which allows one to improve the localization properties of the walker by tuning only the on-site energies of the graph, i.e., without altering its topology. As such, the proposed algorithm is suitable for implementation in systems with low connectivity, e.g., rings of quantum dots or superconducting circuits. Oracle parameters are determined by Hamiltonian constraints, without the need for numerical optimization.
Abstract How to design deterministic spatial search algorithms is a difficult but important problem. This paper presents a deterministic search algorithm on complete bipartite graphs with optimal runtime scaling. Our algorithm adopts the simple form of alternating iterations of an oracle and a continuous-time quantum walk operator, which is a generalization of Grover's search algorithm. To address the case of the number of marked vertices being unknown, we construct a quantum counting algorithm based on the spectrum structure of the search operator. This is a non-trivial example of quantum counting for spatial search. To implement the continuous-time quantum walk operator, we perform Hamiltonian simulation in the quantum circuit model and simulate it on the IBM quantum computing platform Qiskit.
A quantum walk on a lattice is a paradigm of a quantum search in a database. The database qubit strings are the lattice sites, qubit rotations are tunneling events, and the target site is tagged by an energy shift. For quantum walks on a continuous time, the walker diffuses across the lattice and the search ends when it localizes at the target site. The search time T can exhibit Grover's optimal scaling with the lattice size N , namely, T ∼ N , on an all-connected, complete lattice. For finite-range tunneling between sites, instead, Grover's optimal scaling is warranted when the lattice is a hypercube of d > 4 dimensions. Here, we show that Grover's optimum can be reached in lower dimensions on lattices of long-range interacting particles, when the interaction strength scales algebraically with the distance r as 1 / r α and 0 < α < 3 d / 2 . For α < d the dynamics mimics the one of a globally connected graph. For d < α < d + 2 , the quantum search on the graph can be mapped to a short-range model on a hypercube with spatial dimension d s = 2 d / ( α − d ) , indicating that the search is optimal for d s > 4 . Our work identifies an exact relation between criticality of long-range and short-range systems, it provides a quantitative demonstration of the resources that long-range interactions provide for quantum technologies, and indicates when existing experimental platforms can implement efficient analog quantum search algorithms.
The problem of finding a marked node in a graph can be solved by the spatial search algorithm based on continuous-time quantum walks (CTQW). However, this algorithm is known to run in optimal time only for a handful of graphs. In this work, we prove that for Erdös-Renyi random graphs, i.e., graphs of n vertices where each edge exists with probability p, search by CTQW is almost surely optimal as long as p≥log^{3/2}(n)/n. Consequently, we show that quantum spatial search is in fact optimal for almost all graphs, meaning that the fraction of graphs of n vertices for which this optimality holds tends to one in the asymptotic limit. We obtain this result by proving that search is optimal on graphs where the ratio between the second largest and the largest eigenvalue is bounded by a constant smaller than 1. Finally, we show that we can extend our results on search to establish high fidelity quantum communication between two arbitrary nodes of a random network of interacting qubits, namely, to perform quantum state transfer, as well as entanglement generation. Our work shows that quantum information tasks typically designed for structured systems retain performance in very disordered structures.
Quantum walks are a powerful framework for simulating complex quantum systems and designing quantum algorithms, particularly for spatial search on graphs, where the goal is to find a marked vertex efficiently. In this work, we present efficient quantum circuits that implement the evolution operator of continuous-time quantum-walk-based search algorithms for three graph families: complete graphs, complete bipartite graphs, and hypercubes. For complete and complete bipartite graphs, our circuits exactly implement the evolution operator. For hypercubes, we propose an approximate implementation that closely matches the exact evolution operator as the number of vertices increases. Our Qiskit simulations demonstrate that even for low-dimensional hypercubes, the algorithm effectively identifies the marked vertex. Furthermore, the approximate implementation developed for hypercubes can be extended to a broad class of graphs, enabling efficient quantum search in scenarios where exact implementations are impractical.
Continuous-time quantum walks provide a natural framework to tackle the fundamental problem of finding a node among a set of marked nodes in a graph, known as spatial search. Whether spatial search by continuous-time quantum walk provides a quadratic advantage over classical random walks has been an outstanding problem. Thus far, this advantage is obtained only for specific graphs or when a single node of the underlying graph is marked. In this Letter, we provide a new continuous-time quantum walk search algorithm that completely resolves this: our algorithm can find a marked node in any graph with any number of marked nodes, in a time that is quadratically faster than classical random walks. The overall algorithm is quite simple, requiring time evolution of the quantum walk Hamiltonian followed by a projective measurement. A key component of our algorithm is a purely analogue procedure to perform operations on a state of the form e^{-tH^{2}}|ψ⟩, which, for a given Hamiltonian H, only requires evolving H for time scaling as sqrt[t]. This allows us to quadratically fast-forward the dynamics of a continuous-time classical random walk. The applications of our Letter thus go beyond the realm of quantum walks and can lead to new analog quantum algorithms for preparing ground states of Hamiltonians or solving optimization problems.
In this dissertation we demonstrate that the continuous-time quantum walk models remain powerful for nontrivial graph structures. We consider two aspects of this problem. First, it is known that the standard Continuous-Time Quantum Walk (CTQW), proposed by Childs and Goldstone, can propagate quickly on the infinite path graph. However, the Schrödinger equation requires the Hamiltonian to be symmetric, and thus only undirected graphs can be implemented. In this thesis, we address the question, whether it is possible to construct a continuous-time quantum walk on general directed graphs, preserving its propagation properties. Secondly, the quantum spatial search defined through CTQW has been proven to work well on various undirected graphs. However, most of these graphs have very simple structures. The most advanced results concerned the Erdős-Rényi model of random graphs, which is the most popular but not realistic random graph model, and Barabási-Albert random graphs, for which full quadratic speed-up was not confirmed. In the scope of this aspect we analyze, whether quantum speed-up is observed for complicated graph structures as well.