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American Journal of Computational Mathematics

O(logN) Algorithm for Amplitude Amplification and O(logN) Algorithms for Amplitude Transfer in Grover’s Algorithm

Ying Liu

Published Jan 1, 2024• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Grover’s algorithm is a category of quantum algorithms that can be applied to many problems through the exploitation of quantum parallelism. The Amplitude Amplification in Grover’s algorithm is T = O( N ). This paper introduces two new algorithms for Amplitude Amplification in Grover’s algorithm with a time complexity of T = O(logN), aiming to improve efficiency in quantum computing. The difference between Grover’s algorithm and our first algorithm is that the Amplitude Amplification ratio in Grover’s algorithm is an arithmetic series and ours, a geometric one. Because our Amplitude Amplification ratios converge much faster, the time complexity is improved significantly. In our second algorithm, we introduced a new concept, Amplitude Transfer where the marked state is transferred to a new set of qubits such that the new qubit state is an eigenstate of measurable variables. When the new qubit quantum state is measured, with high probability, the correct solution will be obtained.

DOI
10.4236/ajcm.2024.142005

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Grover’s algorithm is a category of quantum algorithms that can be applied to many problems through the exploitation of quantum parallelism. The Amplitude Amplification in Grover’s algorithm is T = O( N ). This paper introduces two new algorithms for Amplitude Amplification in Grover’s algorithm with a time complexity of T = O(logN), aiming to improve efficiency in quantum computing. The difference between Grover’s algorithm and our first algorithm is that the Amplitude Amplification ratio in Grover’s algorithm is an arithmetic series and ours, a geometric one. Because our Amplitude Amplification ratios converge much faster, the time complexity is improved significantly. In our second algorithm, we introduced a new concept, Amplitude Transfer where the marked state is transferred to a new set of qubits such that the new qubit state is an eigenstate of measurable variables. When the new qubit quantum state is measured, with high probability, the correct solution will be obtained.
Since Grover’s algorithm was first introduced, it has become a category of quantum algorithms that can be applied to many problems through the exploitation of quantum parallelism. The original application was the unstructured search problems with the time complexity of O(). In Grover’s algorithm, the key is Oracle and Amplitude Amplification. In this paper, our purpose is to show through examples that, in general, the time complexity of the Oracle Phase is O(N), not O(1). As a result, the time complexity of Grover’s algorithm is O(N), not O(). As a secondary purpose, we also attempt to restore the time complexity of Grover’s algorithm to its original form, O(), by introducing an O(1) parallel algorithm for unstructured search without repeated items, which will work for most cases. In the worst-case scenarios where the number of repeated items is O(N), the time complexity of the Oracle Phase is still O(N) even after additional preprocessing.
Grover’s algorithm achieves O( N ) query complexity for unstructured search, a result proven optimal by Zalka for algorithms using a fixed oracle operator. This paper presents the Exponential Speedup Algorithm, a modified amplitude amplification algorithm that escapes Zalka’s optimality bound by using a sequence of iteration-dependent rotation operators U0, U1, ..., UK−1, where each operator implements a different rotation angle that depends explicitly on the iteration number k, rather than repeatedly applying a single fixed operator. The algorithm achieves geometric series convergence in the amplitude ratio, where r(k) = βk for a parameter β > 1, compared to the arithmetic series r(k) ≈ 2k + 1 in standard Grover. This geometric growth reduces the iteration count from O( N ) to O(logN) = O(n), where N = 2n. The mathematical framework for this approach was established in the author’s previous work, which proved that K = O(logN) iterations suffice to amplify the marked state probability from 1/N to ≥1/2. This paper addresses three questions left open in that work, rigorously proving that: 1) Zalka’s O( N ) lower bound applies only to algorithms using fixed operators; 2) the iteration-dependent rotation operators Uk are unitary and physically realizable; and 3) the explicit N × N unitary matrix for Uk can be derived with closed-form expressions for all matrix elements.
In Chs. 2 and 3 we described several quantum algorithms that are exponentially faster than classical algorithms for the same problem, under some measure of complexity. Unfortunately, the algorithms of Ch. 2 apply to rather contrived problems that do not have known direct applications. We now describe a quantum algorithm that gives only a polynomial—more specifically, quadratic—speedup with respect to classical algorithms, but it applies to a large class of problems and finds many useful applications, both directly and as an algorithmic design tool. The algorithm is known as Grover’s search [89], and its generalization is known as amplitude amplification [43]. Amplitude amplification is widely used as part of many quantum algorithms. It also serves as the basis for amplitude estimation, a way of estimating probabilities quadratically faster than with classical Monte Carlo, and for quantum minimum finding. All these topics are discussed in this chapter.
Abstract This guide is based on the IBM Quantum course Phase Estimation and Factoring and focuses on Grover’s algorithm, a quantum algorithm for unstructured search problems that provides a quadratic speedup over classical approaches. In an unstructured search problem, we are given a function (often represented as an oracle) that marks one or more “correct” solutions among NNN possible candidates. A classical algorithm requires on the order of O(N)O(N)O(N) evaluations in the worst case. In contrast, Grover’s algorithm finds a solution using only O(N)O(\sqrt{N})O(N) oracle queries. This quadratic improvement implies: The quantum algorithm requires roughly the square root of the number of operations needed classically. Any classical algorithm for unstructured search must have cost at least quadratic relative to Grover’s quantum procedure. Core Idea of the Algorithm Grover’s algorithm relies on: Preparation of a uniform superposition (typically using Hadamard gates). An oracle that marks valid solutions via phase inversion. The Grover diffusion operator, which amplifies the probability amplitude of the marked states through interference. By repeatedly applying the Grover operator, the amplitude of the desired solution grows while others diminish, allowing measurement to reveal the correct answer with high probability. Practical Considerations Despite its theoretical elegance and wide applicability, the quadratic speedup of Grover’s algorithm is unlikely to yield near-term practical advantage. Modern classical hardware operates at extremely high clock rates and is vastly more mature than current quantum devices. For problem sizes accessible to today’s quantum computers, classical systems remain dominant. However, history shows that even sub-quadratic classical improvements — such as: Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) Efficient sorting algorithms like quicksort and mergesort have had transformative practical impact. The crucial distinction is that Grover’s algorithm depends on fundamentally different hardware — quantum processors — which are still in early development. Long-Term Perspective As quantum hardware advances in qubit count, coherence time, and error correction, Grover’s quadratic advantage may become practically significant for: Cryptographic key search Optimization heuristics Combinatorial search problems Amplitude amplification subroutines in broader quantum algorithms Through hands-on experimentation on IBM Q, this lesson demonstrates how theoretical amplitude amplification translates into executable quantum circuits, reinforcing the relationship between interference, probability amplitudes, and computational complexity.
A simpler quantum counting algorithm based on amplitude amplification is presented. This algorithm is bounded by O(sqrt(N/M)) calls to the controlled-Grover operator where M is the number of marked states and N is the total number of states in the search space. This algorithm terminates within log(sqrt(N/M)) consecutive measurement steps when the probability p1 of measuring the state |1> is at least 0.5, and the result from the final step is used in estimating M by a classical post processing. The purpose of controlled-Grover iteration is to increase the probability p1. This algorithm requires less quantum resources in terms of the width and depth of the quantum circuit, produces a more accurate estimate of M, and runs significantly faster than the phase estimation-based quantum counting algorithm when the ratio M/N is small. We compare the two quantum counting algorithms by simulating various cases with a different M/N ratio, such as M/N > 0.125 or M/N < 0.001.
This paper concerns the Grover algorithm that permits to make amplification of quantum states previously tagged by an Oracle. Grover's algorithm allows searches in an unstructure database of n entries finding a marked element with a quadratic speedup. The algorithm requires a predefined number of runs to succeed with probability close to one.This article provides a description of the amplitude amplification quantum algorithm mechanism in a very short computational way, based on tensor products and provides a geometric presentation of the successive system states. All the basis changes are fully described to provide an alternative to the wide spread Grover description based only on matrices and complex tensor computation. Our experiments encompass numerical evaluations of circuit using the Qiskit library of IBM that meet the theoretical considerations