On the volume of the set of mixed entangled states II

The problem of of how many entangled or, respectively, separable states there are in the set of all quantum states is investigated. We study to what extent the choice of a measure in the space of density matrices describing N--dimensional quantum systems affects the results obtained. We demonstrate that the link between the purity of the mixed states and the probability of entanglement is not sensitive to the measure chosen. Since the criterion of partial transposition is not sufficient to distinguish all separable states for N > 6, we develop an efficient algorithm to calculate numerically the entanglement of formation of a given mixed quantum state, which allows us to compute the volume of separable states for N=8 and to estimate the volume of the bound entangled states in this case.Comment: 14 pages in Latex, Revtex + epsf; 7 figures in .ps included (one new figure in the revised version, several minor changes

The quantum complexity of approximating the frequency moments

The $k$'th frequency moment of a sequence of integers is defined as $F_k = \sum_j n_j^k$, where $n_j$ is the number of times that $j$ occurs in the sequence. Here we study the quantum complexity of approximately computing the frequency moments in two settings. In the query complexity setting, we wish to minimise the number of queries to the input used to approximate $F_k$ up to relative error $\epsilon$. We give quantum algorithms which outperform the best possible classical algorithms up to quadratically. In the multiple-pass streaming setting, we see the elements of the input one at a time, and seek to minimise the amount of storage space, or passes over the data, used to approximate $F_k$. We describe quantum algorithms for $F_0$, $F_2$ and $F_\infty$ in this model which substantially outperform the best possible classical algorithms in certain parameter regimes.Comment: 22 pages; v3: essentially published versio

On the relationship between continuous- and discrete-time quantum walk

Quantum walk is one of the main tools for quantum algorithms. Defined by analogy to classical random walk, a quantum walk is a time-homogeneous quantum process on a graph. Both random and quantum walks can be defined either in continuous or discrete time. But whereas a continuous-time random walk can be obtained as the limit of a sequence of discrete-time random walks, the two types of quantum walk appear fundamentally different, owing to the need for extra degrees of freedom in the discrete-time case. In this article, I describe a precise correspondence between continuous- and discrete-time quantum walks on arbitrary graphs. Using this correspondence, I show that continuous-time quantum walk can be obtained as an appropriate limit of discrete-time quantum walks. The correspondence also leads to a new technique for simulating Hamiltonian dynamics, giving efficient simulations even in cases where the Hamiltonian is not sparse. The complexity of the simulation is linear in the total evolution time, an improvement over simulations based on high-order approximations of the Lie product formula. As applications, I describe a continuous-time quantum walk algorithm for element distinctness and show how to optimally simulate continuous-time query algorithms of a certain form in the conventional quantum query model. Finally, I discuss limitations of the method for simulating Hamiltonians with negative matrix elements, and present two problems that motivate attempting to circumvent these limitations.Comment: 22 pages. v2: improved presentation, new section on Hamiltonian oracles; v3: published version, with improved analysis of phase estimatio

Revisiting Shor's quantum algorithm for computing general discrete logarithms

We heuristically demonstrate that Shor's algorithm for computing general discrete logarithms, modified to allow the semi-classical Fourier transform to be used with control qubit recycling, achieves a success probability of approximately 60% to 82% in a single run. By slightly increasing the number of group operations that are evaluated quantumly, and by performing a limited search in the classical post-processing, we furthermore show how the algorithm can be modified to achieve a success probability exceeding 99% in a single run. We provide concrete heuristic estimates of the success probability of the modified algorithm, as a function of the group order, the size of the search space in the classical post-processing, and the additional number of group operations evaluated quantumly. In analogy with our earlier works, we show how the modified quantum algorithm may be simulated classically when the logarithm and group order are both known. Furthermore, we show how slightly better tradeoffs may be achieved, compared to our earlier works, if the group order is known when computing the logarithm.Comment: The pre-print has been extended to show how slightly better tradeoffs may be achieved, compared to our earlier works, if the group order is known. A minor issue with an integration limit, that lead us to give a rough success probability estimate of 60% to 70%, as opposed to 60% to 82%, has been corrected. The heuristic and results reported in the original pre-print are otherwise unaffecte

Classical simulations of Abelian-group normalizer circuits with intermediate measurements

Quantum normalizer circuits were recently introduced as generalizations of Clifford circuits [arXiv:1201.4867]: a normalizer circuit over a finite Abelian group $G$ is composed of the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) over G, together with gates which compute quadratic functions and automorphisms. In [arXiv:1201.4867] it was shown that every normalizer circuit can be simulated efficiently classically. This result provides a nontrivial example of a family of quantum circuits that cannot yield exponential speed-ups in spite of usage of the QFT, the latter being a central quantum algorithmic primitive. Here we extend the aforementioned result in several ways. Most importantly, we show that normalizer circuits supplemented with intermediate measurements can also be simulated efficiently classically, even when the computation proceeds adaptively. This yields a generalization of the Gottesman-Knill theorem (valid for n-qubit Clifford operations [quant-ph/9705052, quant-ph/9807006] to quantum circuits described by arbitrary finite Abelian groups. Moreover, our simulations are twofold: we present efficient classical algorithms to sample the measurement probability distribution of any adaptive-normalizer computation, as well as to compute the amplitudes of the state vector in every step of it. Finally we develop a generalization of the stabilizer formalism [quant-ph/9705052, quant-ph/9807006] relative to arbitrary finite Abelian groups: for example we characterize how to update stabilizers under generalized Pauli measurements and provide a normal form of the amplitudes of generalized stabilizer states using quadratic functions and subgroup cosets.Comment: 26 pages+appendices. Title has changed in this second version. To appear in Quantum Information and Computation, Vol.14 No.3&4, 201