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arXiv:quant-ph/0006004 · Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science

Fast parallel circuits for the quantum Fourier transform

Richard Cleve, John Watrous

Published Nov 7, 2002• 220 citations
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Abstract

We give new bounds on the circuit complexity of the quantum Fourier transform (QFT). We give an upper bound of O(log n+log log(1//spl epsiv/)) on the circuit depth for computing an approximation of the QFT with respect to the modulus 2/sup n/ with error bounded by /spl epsiv/. Thus, even for exponentially small error, our circuits have depth O(log n). The best previous depth bound was O(n), even for approximations with constant error. Moreover, our circuits have size O(n log(n//spl epsiv/)). As an application of this depth bound, we show that P. Shor's (1997) factoring algorithm may be based on quantum circuits with depth only O(log n) and polynomial size, in combination with classical polynomial-time pre- and postprocessing. Next, we prove an /spl Omega/(log n) lower bound on the depth complexity of approximations of the QFT with constant error. This implies that the above upper bound is asymptotically tight (for a reasonable range of values of /spl epsiv/). We also give an upper bound of O(n(log n)/sup 2/ log log n) on the circuit size of the exact QFT modulo 2/sup n/, for which the best previous bound was O(n/sup 2/). Finally, based on our circuits for the QFT with power-of-2 moduli, we show that the QFT with respect to an arbitrary modulus m can be approximated with accuracy /spl epsiv/ with circuits of depth O((log log m)(log log 1//spl epsiv/)) and size polynomial in log m+log(1//spl epsiv/).

DOI
10.1109/sfcs.2000.892140

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We give new bounds on the circuit complexity of the quantum Fourier transform (QFT). We give an upper bound of O(log n+log log(1//spl epsiv/)) on the circuit depth for computing an approximation of the QFT with respect to the modulus 2/sup n/ with error bounded by /spl epsiv/. Thus, even for exponentially small error, our circuits have depth O(log n). The best previous depth bound was O(n), even for approximations with constant error. Moreover, our circuits have size O(n log(n//spl epsiv/)). As an application of this depth bound, we show that P. Shor's (1997) factoring algorithm may be based on quantum circuits with depth only O(log n) and polynomial size, in combination with classical polynomial-time pre- and postprocessing. Next, we prove an /spl Omega/(log n) lower bound on the depth complexity of approximations of the QFT with constant error. This implies that the above upper bound is asymptotically tight (for a reasonable range of values of /spl epsiv/). We also give an upper bound of O(n(log n)/sup 2/ log log n) on the circuit size of the exact QFT modulo 2/sup n/, for which the best previous bound was O(n/sup 2/). Finally, based on our circuits for the QFT with power-of-2 moduli, we show that the QFT with respect to an arbitrary modulus m can be approximated with accuracy /spl epsiv/ with circuits of depth O((log log m)(log log 1//spl epsiv/)) and size polynomial in log m+log(1//spl epsiv/).
It has previously been established that the logarithmic-depth approximate quantum Fourier transform (AQFT) provides a suitable replacement for the regular QFT in many quantum algorithms. Since the AQFT is less accurate by definition, polynomially many more applications of the AQFT are required to achieve the original accuracy. However, in many quantum algorithms, the smaller size of the AQFT circuit yields a net improvement over using the QFT. This paper presents a more thorough analysis of the AQFT circuit, which leads to the surprising conclusion that for sufficiently large input sizes, the difference between the QFT and the logarithmic-depth AQFT is negligible. In effect, the AQFT can be used as an direct replacement for the QFT, yielding improvements in any application which does not require exact quantum computation.
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Abstract The ability to implement the Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT) efficiently on a quantum computer facilitates the advantages offered by a variety of fundamental quantum algorithms, such as those for integer factoring, computing discrete logarithm over Abelian groups, solving systems of linear equations, and phase estimation, to name a few. The standard fault-tolerant implementation of an n-qubit unitary QFT approximates the desired transformation by removing small-angle controlled rotations and synthesizing the remaining ones into Clifford+T gates, incurring the T-count complexity of O(n log2 (n))O(n\,{\mathrm{log}}^{2}\,(n))O(nlog2(n)) O ( n log 2 ( n ) ) . In this paper, we show how to obtain approximate QFT with the T-count of O(n log (n))O(n\,{\mathrm{log}}\,(n))O(nlog(n)) O ( n log ( n ) ) . For brevity, the above figures omit the dependence on the approximation error ε, assuming the error is fixed. Our approach relies on quantum circuits with measurements and feedforward, and on reusing a special quantum state that induces the phase gradient transformation. We report asymptotic analysis as well as concrete circuits, demonstrating significant advantages in both theory and practice.
We demonstrate that the unbounded fan-out gate is very powerful. Constant-depth polynomial-size quantum circuits with bounded fan-in and unbounded fan-out over a fixed basis (denoted by QNCf0\mathrm{QNC}_{\mathrm{f}}^0QNCf0​) can approximate with polynomially small error the following gates: parity, mod[q], And, Or, majority, threshold[t], exact[t], and Counting. Classically, we need logarithmic depth even if we can use unbounded fan-in gates. If we allow arbitrary one-qubit gates instead of a fixed basis, then these circuits can also be made exact in log-star depth. Sorting, arithmetic operations, phase estimation, and the quantum Fourier transform with arbitrary moduli can also be approximated in constant depth.
Bounds on the QAC0\mathrm{QAC}^0QAC0 Complexity of Approximating Parity
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We define a canonical version of the recursive Fourier sampling problem from quantum complexity theory, and systematically address a variety of its computational properties, including quantum query complexity, classical randomized query complexity, polynomial degree, and circuit size. Our analysis yields improvements for several of the known upper and lower bounds with regard to these complexity measures. For quantum query complexity, we define an explicit reduced-query quantum algorithm for the problem, and recursively construct a quantum circuit that implements the algorithm. For classical query complexity, we give new proofs of the known lower bounds that improve the constants, and we give complete proofs of the complexity class separations relative to oracles, that follow from these bounds. For polynomial degree, we construct an exactly representing real polynomial of extremely low degree, and extend it to representations over other Fields. We show that this degree is exactly optimal, even for a 2 weakly-representing polynomial. For circuit size, we construct a small depth-two circuit for the non-recursive version of the problem, and we show that the size is optimal even if the depth is not restricted. We also prove asymptotically matching upper and lower bounds on circuit size for the full recursive version of the problem when the depth is restricted to two. To prove the tight results for polynomial degree and circuit size we introduce and define a general notion of reduction for both polynomials and circuits that represent boolean functions on a partial domain. We also introduce and define, separately, a new measure of circuit complexity called effort.