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arXiv:quant-ph/0211174

Quantum Time-Space Tradeoffs for Sorting

Hartmut Klauck

Published Nov 26, 2002• 0 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the complexity of sorting in the model of sequential quantum circuits. While it is known that in general a quantum algorithm based on comparisons alone cannot outperform classical sorting algorithms by more than a constant factor in time complexity, this is wrong in a space bounded setting. We observe that for all storage bounds n/\log n\ge S\ge \log^3 n, one can devise a quantum algorithm that sorts n numbers (using comparisons only) in time T=O(n^{3/2}\log^{3/2} n/\sqrt S). We then show the following lower bound on the time-space tradeoff for sorting $n$ numbers from a polynomial size range in a general sorting algorithm (not necessarily based on comparisons): TS=Ω(n^{3/2}). Hence for small values of S the upper bound is almost tight. Classically the time-space tradeoff for sorting is TS=Θ(n^2).

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0211174

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We investigate the complexity of sorting in the model of sequential quantum circuits. While it is known that in general a quantum algorithm based on comparisons alone cannot outperform classical sorting algorithms by more than a constant factor in time complexity, this is wrong in a space bounded setting. We observe that for all storage bounds n/\log n\ge S\ge \log^3 n, one can devise a quantum algorithm that sorts n numbers (using comparisons only) in time T=O(n^{3/2}\log^{3/2} n/\sqrt S). We then show the following lower bound on the time-space tradeoff for sorting nnn numbers from a polynomial size range in a general sorting algorithm (not necessarily based on comparisons): TS=Ω(n^{3/2}). Hence for small values of S the upper bound is almost tight. Classically the time-space tradeoff for sorting is TS=Θ(n^2).
We investigate the complexity of sorting in the model of sequential quantum circuits. While it is known that in general a quantum algorithm based on comparisons alone cannot outperform classical sorting algorithms by more than a constant factor in time complexity, this is wrong in a space bounded setting. We observe that for all storage bounds n/\log n\ge S\ge \log^3 n, one can devise a quantum algorithm that sorts n numbers (using comparisons only) in time T=O(n^{3/2}\log^{3/2} n/\sqrt S). We then show the following lower bound on the time-space tradeoff for sorting nnn numbers from a polynomial size range in a general sorting algorithm (not necessarily based on comparisons): TS=\Omega(n^{3/2}). Hence for small values of S the upper bound is almost tight. Classically the time-space tradeoff for sorting is TS=\Theta(n^2).
Time and space (memory) are two of the most important measures of cost in computation, even more so for quantum computation. Yet, our tools for proving unconditional quantum tradeoffs between time and space are surprisingly limited. The first quantum time-space tradeoff lower bounds were proven for sorting by Klauck, Špalek and de Wolf. Unfortunately, their method is limited to proving output-oblivious lower bounds (i.e. the lower bounds only apply to algorithms with a non-adaptive output schedule) and other methods have yielded nothing beyond output-oblivious lower bounds for sorting. Here, we prove the first fully general quantum time-space tradeoff lower bound for sorting. We do so by introducing a novel method based on the noise operator to add to the analysis toolkit for proving quantum query and time-space tradeoff lower bounds. By combining our resulting quantum noise stability bound with quantum recording query methods, we prove an Ω(n4/3(log⁡log⁡n)/(S1/3log⁡n))Ω(n^{4/3} (\log \log n)/(S^{1/3} \log n))Ω(n4/3(loglogn)/(S1/3logn)) lower bound on the number of queries that a fully general quantum algorithm with at most SSS qubits of memory requires to sort nnn numbers from [n2][n^2][n2]. Applying our noise operator argument involves purely classical reasoning, which makes it particularly simple to use. We also use it to prove that, for any strongly universal (pairwise independent) hash function family HHH from nnn bits to mmm bits, almost all hash functions in HHH require any algorithm with at most SSS qubits of memory to make Ω(nm/S)Ω(nm/S)Ω(nm/S) quantum queries to input xxx in order to compute h(x)h(x)h(x), even with very small success probability. Previously, Mansour, Nisan, and Tiwari had shown a matching classical lower bound for computing h(x)h(x)h(x) with both hhh and xxx as inputs using their hash mixing lemma. Our noise operator method allows us to use a related property of hash functions to prove our quantum lower bounds.
We investigate the complexity of sorting in the model of sequential quantum circuits. While it is known that in general a quantum algorithm based on comparisons alone cannot outperform classical sorting algorithms by more than a constant factor in time complexity, this is wrong in a space bounded setting. We observe that for all storage bounds n/log ≥ S ≥ log3n, one can devise a quantum algorithm that sorts n numbers (using comparisons only) in time T=O(n3/2 log3/2 n/√S). We then show the following lower bound on the time-space tradeoff for sorting n numbers from a polynomial size range in a general sorting algorithm (not necessarily based on comparisons): TS=Ω(n3/2). Hence for small values of S the upper bound is almost tight. Classically the time-space tradeoff for sorting is TS=Θ(n2).
We prove lower bounds on the time and space required for quantum computers to solve a wide variety of problems involving matrices, many of which have only been analyzed classically in prior work. Using a novel way of applying recording query methods we show that for many linear algebra problems—including matrix-vector product, matrix inversion, matrix multiplication and powering—existing classical time-space tradeoffs also apply to quantum algorithms with at most a constant factor loss. For example, for almost all fixed matrices A, including the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) matrix, we prove that quantum circuits with at most T input queries and S qubits of memory require T=Ω(n2/S) to compute matrix-vector product Ax for x ∈ {0,1}n. We similarly prove that matrix multiplication for n× n binary matrices requires T=Ω(n3 / √S). Because many of our lower bounds are matched by deterministic algorithms with the same time and space complexity, our results show that quantum computers cannot provide any asymptotic advantage for these problems at any space bound. We also improve the previous quantum time-space tradeoff lower bounds for n× n Boolean (i.e. AND-OR) matrix multiplication from T=Ω(n2.5/S1/2) to T=Ω(n2.5/S1/4) which has optimal exponents for the powerful query algorithms to which it applies. Our method also yields improved lower bounds for classical algorithms.
Abstract. We consider the time and space required for quantum computers to solve a wide variety of problems involving matrices, many of which have only been analyzed classically in prior work. Our main results show that for a range of linear algebra problems—including matrix-vector product, matrix inversion, matrix multiplication and powering—existing classical time-space tradeoffs, several of which are tight for every space bound, also apply to quantum algorithms with at most a constant factor loss. For example, for almost all fixed matrices [Formula: see text], including the discrete Fourier transform matrix, we prove that quantum circuits with at most [Formula: see text] input queries and [Formula: see text] qubits of memory require [Formula: see text] to compute matrix-vector product [Formula: see text] for [Formula: see text]. We similarly prove that matrix multiplication for [Formula: see text] binary matrices requires [Formula: see text]. Because many of our lower bounds are matched by deterministic algorithms with the same time and space complexity, our results show that quantum computers cannot provide any asymptotic advantage for these problems with any space bound. We obtain matching lower bounds for the stronger notion of quantum cumulative memory complexity—the sum of the space per layer of a circuit. We also consider Boolean (i.e., AND-OR) matrix multiplication and matrix-vector products, improving the previous quantum time-space tradeoff lower bounds for [Formula: see text] Boolean matrix multiplication to [Formula: see text] from [Formula: see text]. Our improved lower bound for Boolean matrix multiplication is based on a new coloring argument that extracts more from the strong direct product theorem that was the basis for prior work. To obtain our tight lower bounds for linear algebra problems, we require much stronger bounds than strong direct product theorems. We obtain these bounds by adding a new bucketing method to the quantum recording-query technique of Zhandry that lets us apply classical arguments to upper bound the success probability of quantum circuits.
Cumulative memory—the sum of space used per step over the duration of a computation—is a fine-grained measure of time-space complexity that was introduced to analyze cryptographic applications like password hashing. It is a more accurate cost measure for algorithms that have infrequent spikes in memory usage and are run in environments such as cloud computing that allow dynamic allocation and de-allocation of resources during execution, or when many instances of an algorithm are interleaved in parallel. We prove the first lower bounds on cumulative memory complexity for both sequential classical computation and quantum circuits. Moreover, we develop general paradigms for bounding cumulative memory complexity inspired by the standard paradigms for proving time-space tradeoff lower bounds that can only lower bound the maximum space used during an execution. The resulting lower bounds on cumulative memory that we obtain are just as strong as the best time-space tradeoff lower bounds, which are very often known to be tight. Although previous results for pebbling and random oracle models have yielded time-space tradeoff lower bounds larger than the cumulative memory complexity, our results show that in general computational models such separations cannot follow from known lower bound techniques and are not true for many functions. Among many possible applications of our general methods, we show that any classical sorting algorithm with success probability at least 1/poly( n ) requires cumulative memory Ω~(n2)\tilde{\Omega }(n^2) Ω~(n2) , any classical matrix multiplication algorithm requires cumulative memory Ω ( n 6 / T ), any quantum sorting circuit requires cumulative memory Ω ( n 3 / T ), and any quantum circuit that finds k disjoint collisions in a random function requires cumulative memory Ω ( k 3 n / T 2 ).