8,018 research outputs found
Complexity Classification of Local Hamiltonian Problems
The calculation of ground-state energies of physical systems can be formalised as the k-local Hamiltonian problem, which is the natural quantum analogue of classical constraint satisfaction problems. One way of making the problem more physically meaningful is to restrict the Hamiltonian in question by picking its terms from a fixed set S. Examples of such special cases are the Heisenberg and Ising models from condensed-matter physics. In this work we characterise the complexity of this problem for all 2-local qubit Hamiltonians. Depending on the subset S, the problem falls into one of the following categories: in P, NP-complete, polynomial-time equivalent to the Ising model with transverse magnetic fields, or QMA-complete. The third of these classes contains NP and is contained within StoqMA. The characterisation holds even if S does not contain any 1-local terms, for example, we prove for the first time QMA-completeness of the Heisenberg and XY interactions in this setting. If S is assumed to contain all 1-local terms, which is the setting considered by previous work, we have a characterisation that goes beyond 2-local interactions: for any constant k, all k-local qubit Hamiltonians whose terms are picked from a fixed set S correspond to problems either in P, polynomial-time equivalent to the Ising model with transverse magnetic fields, or QMA-complete. These results are a quantum analogue of Schaefer's dichotomy theorem for boolean constraint satisfaction problems.Some of this work was completed while AM was at the
University of Cambridge. TC is supported by the Royal
Society.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IEEE via http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/FOCS.2014.2
Oracle Complexity Classes and Local Measurements on Physical Hamiltonians
The canonical problem for the class Quantum Merlin-Arthur (QMA) is that of
estimating ground state energies of local Hamiltonians. Perhaps surprisingly,
[Ambainis, CCC 2014] showed that the related, but arguably more natural,
problem of simulating local measurements on ground states of local Hamiltonians
(APX-SIM) is likely harder than QMA. Indeed, [Ambainis, CCC 2014] showed that
APX-SIM is P^QMA[log]-complete, for P^QMA[log] the class of languages decidable
by a P machine making a logarithmic number of adaptive queries to a QMA oracle.
In this work, we show that APX-SIM is P^QMA[log]-complete even when restricted
to more physical Hamiltonians, obtaining as intermediate steps a variety of
related complexity-theoretic results.
We first give a sequence of results which together yield P^QMA[log]-hardness
for APX-SIM on well-motivated Hamiltonians: (1) We show that for NP, StoqMA,
and QMA oracles, a logarithmic number of adaptive queries is equivalent to
polynomially many parallel queries. These equalities simplify the proofs of our
subsequent results. (2) Next, we show that the hardness of APX-SIM is preserved
under Hamiltonian simulations (a la [Cubitt, Montanaro, Piddock, 2017]). As a
byproduct, we obtain a full complexity classification of APX-SIM, showing it is
complete for P, P^||NP, P^||StoqMA, or P^||QMA depending on the Hamiltonians
employed. (3) Leveraging the above, we show that APX-SIM is P^QMA[log]-complete
for any family of Hamiltonians which can efficiently simulate spatially sparse
Hamiltonians, including physically motivated models such as the 2D Heisenberg
model.
Our second focus considers 1D systems: We show that APX-SIM remains
P^QMA[log]-complete even for local Hamiltonians on a 1D line of 8-dimensional
qudits. This uses a number of ideas from above, along with replacing the "query
Hamiltonian" of [Ambainis, CCC 2014] with a new "sifter" construction.Comment: 38 pages, 3 figure
Complexity classification of two-qubit commuting hamiltonians
We classify two-qubit commuting Hamiltonians in terms of their computational
complexity. Suppose one has a two-qubit commuting Hamiltonian H which one can
apply to any pair of qubits, starting in a computational basis state. We prove
a dichotomy theorem: either this model is efficiently classically simulable or
it allows one to sample from probability distributions which cannot be sampled
from classically unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. Furthermore, the
only simulable Hamiltonians are those which fail to generate entanglement. This
shows that generic two-qubit commuting Hamiltonians can be used to perform
computational tasks which are intractable for classical computers under
plausible assumptions. Our proof makes use of new postselection gadgets and Lie
theory.Comment: 34 page
Universal Quantum Hamiltonians
Quantum many-body systems exhibit an extremely diverse range of phases and
physical phenomena. Here, we prove that the entire physics of any other quantum
many-body system is replicated in certain simple, "universal" spin-lattice
models. We first characterise precisely what it means for one quantum many-body
system to replicate the entire physics of another. We then show that certain
very simple spin-lattice models are universal in this very strong sense.
Examples include the Heisenberg and XY models on a 2D square lattice (with
non-uniform coupling strengths). We go on to fully classify all two-qubit
interactions, determining which are universal and which can only simulate more
restricted classes of models. Our results put the practical field of analogue
Hamiltonian simulation on a rigorous footing and take a significant step
towards justifying why error correction may not be required for this
application of quantum information technology.Comment: 78 pages, 9 figures, 44 theorems etc. v2: Trivial fixes. v3: updated
and simplified proof of Thm. 9; 82 pages, 47 theorems etc. v3: Small fix in
proof of time-evolution lemma (this fix not in published version
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