We revisit the finite Abelian hidden subgroup problem (AHSP) from a mathematical perspective and make the following contributions. First, by employing amplitude amplification, we present an exact quantum algorithm for the finite AHSP, our algorithm is more concise than the previous exact algorithm and applies to any finite Abelian group. Second, utilizing the Chinese Remainder Theorem, we propose a distributed exact quantum algorithm for finite AHSP, which requires fewer qudits, lower quantum query complexity, and no quantum communication. We further show that our distributed approach can be extended to certain classes of non-Abelian groups. Finally, we develop a parallel exact classical algorithm for finite AHSP with reduced query complexity; even without parallel execution, the total number of queries across all nodes does not exceed that of the original centralized algorithm under mild conditions.
Quantum algorithms are powerful tools for finding symmetries of classical objects, most famously through Shor's algorithm and the Hidden Subgroup Problem (HSP). In this work, we study quantum algorithms for learning symmetries of \emph{quantum} objects. Existing work in this area centres on the recently introduced State Hidden Subgroup Problem (StateHSP), a quantum generalisation of HSP in which the task is to learn the symmetry subgroup of a quantum state. We develop efficient quantum algorithms for non-abelian StateHSP when the hidden subgroup is normal and the ambient group belongs to a broad class of non-abelian groups, extending the previous general theory beyond the abelian setting.
StateHSP learns \emph{Bose} symmetries, under which a state must be invariant exactly under the action of the symmetry group. In quantum mechanics, however, physically equivalent pure states are defined only up to global phase. Motivated by this, we introduce a natural notion of \emph{Anyonic} state symmetry learning, based on invariance up to global phase. We give an efficient quantum algorithm by reducing the problem to StateHSP, where the reduction rests on a new correspondence between linearisations of projective representations and linear error-correcting codes. As an application, we obtain an improved algorithm for learning stabiliser groups of mixed qudit states of arbitrary local dimension. Finally, we introduce symmetry learning problems for other quantum objects, including unitaries, Hamiltonians, and finite collections of states, and give efficient algorithms for them by reduction to state symmetry learning. Together, these results broaden the scope of state symmetry learning as a common algorithmic primitive for learning quantum symmetries.
Several early quantum algorithms, including Simon's algorithm and Shor's period-finding are instances of the hidden subgroup problem (HSP) over finite abelian groups. No polynomial-time quantum algorithm is known for the HSP over arbitrary non-abelian finite groups. The non-Abelian case is of particular interest because some instances, such as the dihedral and symmetric group HSPs, are connected to lattice problems and graph isomorphism, respectively.
In this work, we give polynomial-time quantum algorithms for two further families containing non-Abelian groups. First, we consider groups of the form
G=A⋊φZpk, with
A finite Abelian,
p prime,
k∈N and the action of
Zpk is generated by the scalar automorphism
a↦μa, for some
μ∈ZExp(A)×, where
Exp(A) is the exponent of
A. Our algorithm is efficient when
A has bounded generator rank and
Exp(A)/p=polylog(∣G∣). This includes the case
A=ZN for
N∈N and
k=1, studied by Bacon, Childs and van Dam (FOCS 2005), and
A=Zqr with
q prime and
r∈N studied by van Dam and Dey (TQC 2014). Second, we give a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for finite quasi-Hamiltonian groups under a mild assumption on the input structure. Quasi-Hamiltonian groups are finite nilpotent groups with modular subgroup lattice, or equivalently the finite groups in which every subgroup is permutable. As far as we know, this is the first quantum algorithm to exploit the modularity of the subgroup lattice for solving the HSP. This extends, under the aforementioned structured input assumption, the quantum algorithm for Dedekind groups given by Hallgren, Russell, and Ta-Shma (SIAM J. Comput. 32, 2003).