Approximation in Quantum Computing

Keisuke Fujii

Jamie Smith, Michele Mosca

Niels Gleinig, Tobias Rohner, Torsten Hoefler

The synthesis approaches for quantum circuits typically aim at minimizing the number of lines or gates. Given the tight restrictions on those logical resources in physical implementations, we propose to view the problem fundamentally different: Given noisy gates and a fixed number of lines, how can we use them to perform a computation as precisely as possible? In this paper we show approximate circuits can be deployed for computations with limited resources. Performing experiments on a QC simulator, we show that under the influence of noise, approximate circuits can have lower error-rates than exact circuits.

Ryan L. Mann, Michael J. Bremner

There is a natural relationship between Jones polynomials and quantum computation. We use this relationship to show that the complexity of evaluating relative-error approximations of Jones polynomials can be used to bound the classical complexity of approximately simulating random quantum computations. We prove that random quantum computations cannot be classically simulated up to a constant total variation distance, under the assumption that (1) the Polynomial Hierarchy does not collapse and (2) the average-case complexity of relative-error approximations of the Jones polynomial matches the worst-case complexity over a constant fraction of random links. Our results provide a straightforward relationship between the approximation of Jones polynomials and the complexity of random quantum computations.

Edward B. Manoukian

Elliot Catt, Marcus Hütter

In this technical report we give an elementary introduction to Quantum Computing for non-physicists. In this introduction we describe in detail some of the foundational Quantum Algorithms including: the Deutsch-Jozsa Algorithm, Shor's Algorithm, Grocer Search, and Quantum Counting Algorithm and briefly the Harrow-Lloyd Algorithm. Additionally we give an introduction to Solomonoff Induction, a theoretically optimal method for prediction. We then attempt to use Quantum computing to find better algorithms for the approximation of Solomonoff Induction. This is done by using techniques from other Quantum computing algorithms to achieve a speedup in computing the speed prior, which is an approximation of Solomonoff's prior, a key part of Solomonoff Induction. The major limiting factors are that the probabilities being computed are often so small that without a sufficient (often large) amount of trials, the error may be larger than the result. If a substantial speedup in the computation of an approximation of Solomonoff Induction can be achieved through quantum computing, then this can be applied to the field of intelligent agents as a key part of an approximation of the agent AIXI.