9,792 research outputs found
Limits on Fundamental Limits to Computation
An indispensable part of our lives, computing has also become essential to
industries and governments. Steady improvements in computer hardware have been
supported by periodic doubling of transistor densities in integrated circuits
over the last fifty years. Such Moore scaling now requires increasingly heroic
efforts, stimulating research in alternative hardware and stirring controversy.
To help evaluate emerging technologies and enrich our understanding of
integrated-circuit scaling, we review fundamental limits to computation: in
manufacturing, energy, physical space, design and verification effort, and
algorithms. To outline what is achievable in principle and in practice, we
recall how some limits were circumvented, compare loose and tight limits. We
also point out that engineering difficulties encountered by emerging
technologies may indicate yet-unknown limits.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
On the Role of Hadamard Gates in Quantum Circuits
We study a reduced quantum circuit computation paradigm in which the only
allowable gates either permute the computational basis states or else apply a
"global Hadamard operation", i.e. apply a Hadamard operation to every qubit
simultaneously. In this model, we discuss complexity bounds (lower-bounding the
number of global Hadamard operations) for common quantum algorithms : we
illustrate upper bounds for Shor's Algorithm, and prove lower bounds for
Grover's Algorithm. We also use our formalism to display a gate that is neither
quantum-universal nor classically simulable, on the assumption that Integer
Factoring is not in BPP.Comment: 16 pages, last section clarified, typos corrected, references added,
minor rewordin
The Road to Quantum Computational Supremacy
We present an idiosyncratic view of the race for quantum computational
supremacy. Google's approach and IBM challenge are examined. An unexpected
side-effect of the race is the significant progress in designing fast classical
algorithms. Quantum supremacy, if achieved, won't make classical computing
obsolete.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur
Energy-Efficient Algorithms
We initiate the systematic study of the energy complexity of algorithms (in
addition to time and space complexity) based on Landauer's Principle in
physics, which gives a lower bound on the amount of energy a system must
dissipate if it destroys information. We propose energy-aware variations of
three standard models of computation: circuit RAM, word RAM, and
transdichotomous RAM. On top of these models, we build familiar high-level
primitives such as control logic, memory allocation, and garbage collection
with zero energy complexity and only constant-factor overheads in space and
time complexity, enabling simple expression of energy-efficient algorithms. We
analyze several classic algorithms in our models and develop low-energy
variations: comparison sort, insertion sort, counting sort, breadth-first
search, Bellman-Ford, Floyd-Warshall, matrix all-pairs shortest paths, AVL
trees, binary heaps, and dynamic arrays. We explore the time/space/energy
trade-off and develop several general techniques for analyzing algorithms and
reducing their energy complexity. These results lay a theoretical foundation
for a new field of semi-reversible computing and provide a new framework for
the investigation of algorithms.Comment: 40 pages, 8 pdf figures, full version of work published in ITCS 201
Hamiltonian Simulation Using Linear Combinations of Unitary Operations
We present a new approach to simulating Hamiltonian dynamics based on
implementing linear combinations of unitary operations rather than products of
unitary operations. The resulting algorithm has superior performance to
existing simulation algorithms based on product formulas and, most notably,
scales better with the simulation error than any known Hamiltonian simulation
technique. Our main tool is a general method to nearly deterministically
implement linear combinations of nearby unitary operations, which we show is
optimal among a large class of methods.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure
- …