Span programs and quantum algorithms for st-connectivity and claw detection

We introduce a span program that decides st-connectivity, and generalize the span program to develop quantum algorithms for several graph problems. First, we give an algorithm for st-connectivity that uses O(n d^{1/2}) quantum queries to the n x n adjacency matrix to decide if vertices s and t are connected, under the promise that they either are connected by a path of length at most d, or are disconnected. We also show that if T is a path, a star with two subdivided legs, or a subdivision of a claw, its presence as a subgraph in the input graph G can be detected with O(n) quantum queries to the adjacency matrix. Under the promise that G either contains T as a subgraph or does not contain T as a minor, we give O(n)-query quantum algorithms for detecting T either a triangle or a subdivision of a star. All these algorithms can be implemented time efficiently and, except for the triangle-detection algorithm, in logarithmic space. One of the main techniques is to modify the st-connectivity span program to drop along the way "breadcrumbs," which must be retrieved before the path from s is allowed to enter t.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

Frames, Graphs and Erasures

Two-uniform frames and their use for the coding of vectors are the main subject of this paper. These frames are known to be optimal for handling up to two erasures, in the sense that they minimize the largest possible error when up to two frame coefficients are set to zero. Here, we consider various numerical measures for the reconstruction error associated with a frame when an arbitrary number of the frame coefficients of a vector are lost. We derive general error bounds for two-uniform frames when more than two erasures occur and apply these to concrete examples. We show that among the 227 known equivalence classes of two-uniform (36,15)-frames arising from Hadamard matrices, there are 5 that give smallest error bounds for up to 8 erasures.Comment: 28 pages LaTeX, with AMS macros; v.3: fixed Thm 3.6, added comment, Lemma 3.7 and Proposition 3.8, to appear in Lin. Alg. App