A maze of QMs

Yuto Ishikawa, Takuma Yoshihara, Keita Okamura +1 more

In this study, the maze generation using quantum annealing is proposed. We reformulate a standard algorithm to generate a maze into a specific form of a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problem suitable for the input of the quantum annealer. To generate more difficulty mazes, we introduce an additional cost function Qupdate to increase the difficulty. The difficulty of the mazes was evaluated by the time to solve the maze of 12 human subjects. To check the efficiency of our scheme to create the maze, we investigated the time-to-solution of a quantum processing unit, classical computer, and hybrid solver. The results show that Qupdate generates difficult mazes tailored to the individual. Furthermore, it show that the quantum processing unit is more efficient at generating mazes than other solvers. Finally, we also present applications how our results could be used in the future.

Dick J. Hoekzema

Niraj Kumar, Debabrata Goswami

We propose a different methodology towards approaching a Maze problem. We convert the problem into a Quantum Search Problem (QSP), and its solutions are sought for using the iterative Grover's Search Algorithm. Though the category of mazes we are looking at are of the NP complete class, we have redirected such a NP complete problem into a QSP. Our solution deals with two dimensional perfect mazes with no closed loops. We encode all possible individual paths from the starting point of the maze into a quantum register. A quantum fitness operator applied on the register encodes each individual with its fitness value. We propose an oracle design which marks all the individuals above a certain fitness value and use the Grover search algorithm to find one of the marked states. Iterating over this method, we approach towards the optimum solution.

Mark A Bashuk

It is well known, and appreciated, that quantum computers have the potential to be the most powerful computational devices ever created. This newfound power comes from a quantum parallelism effect that allows the computer to be in multiple states at the same time. This property of quantum parallelism, while suited to handle common problems such as factoring and searching an unorganized database, is extremely well-suited to handle the task of solving a binary maze. I propose an algorithm that can be used to solve a binary maze on a quantum computer, with guaranteed accuracy. While it does work, it does come with a few setbacks, in that the maze must have no flaws, and that the computer requires a number of qubits equal to the number of decisions in the maze, plus log 2 of the decisions.

Siegfried Zürn