Quantum algorithms to solve the hidden shift problem for quadratics and for functions of large Gowers norm

Most quantum algorithms that give an exponential speedup over classical algorithms exploit the Fourier transform in some way. In Shor's algorithm, sampling from the quantum Fourier spectrum is used to discover periodicity of the modular exponentiation function. In a generalization of this idea, quantum Fourier sampling can be used to discover hidden subgroup structures of some functions much more efficiently than it is possible classically. Another problem for which the Fourier transform has been recruited successfully on a quantum computer is the hidden shift problem. Quantum algorithms for hidden shift problems usually have a slightly different flavor from hidden subgroup algorithms, as they use the Fourier transform to perform a correlation with a given reference function, instead of sampling from the Fourier spectrum directly. In this paper we show that hidden shifts can be extracted efficiently from Boolean functions that are quadratic forms. We also show how to identify an unknown quadratic form on n variables using a linear number of queries, in contrast to the classical case were this takes Theta(n^2) many queries to a black box. What is more, we show that our quantum algorithm is robust in the sense that it can also infer the shift if the function is close to a quadratic, where we consider a Boolean function to be close to a quadratic if it has a large Gowers U_3 norm.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, Proc. MFCS'09, LNCS vol. 5734, pp. 663-674, 2009. Mezzanine tranche of earlier paper arXiv:0811.320

Quantum algorithms for highly non-linear Boolean functions

Attempts to separate the power of classical and quantum models of computation have a long history. The ultimate goal is to find exponential separations for computational problems. However, such separations do not come a dime a dozen: while there were some early successes in the form of hidden subgroup problems for abelian groups--which generalize Shor's factoring algorithm perhaps most faithfully--only for a handful of non-abelian groups efficient quantum algorithms were found. Recently, problems have gotten increased attention that seek to identify hidden sub-structures of other combinatorial and algebraic objects besides groups. In this paper we provide new examples for exponential separations by considering hidden shift problems that are defined for several classes of highly non-linear Boolean functions. These so-called bent functions arise in cryptography, where their property of having perfectly flat Fourier spectra on the Boolean hypercube gives them resilience against certain types of attack. We present new quantum algorithms that solve the hidden shift problems for several well-known classes of bent functions in polynomial time and with a constant number of queries, while the classical query complexity is shown to be exponential. Our approach uses a technique that exploits the duality between bent functions and their Fourier transforms.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA'10). This updated version of the paper contains a new exponential separation between classical and quantum query complexit

Polynomial-Time Solution to the Hidden Subgroup Problem for a Class of non-abelian Groups

We present a family of non-abelian groups for which the hidden subgroup problem can be solved efficiently on a quantum computer.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX2e, 3 figure

Beyond Stabilizer Codes I: Nice Error Bases

Nice error bases have been introduced by Knill as a generalization of the Pauli basis. These bases are shown to be projective representations of finite groups. We classify all nice error bases of small degree, and all nice error bases with abelian index groups. We show that in general an index group of a nice error basis is necessarily solvable.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX2e. Minor changes. Title changed by request of IEEE Trans. I

Quantum MDS Codes over Small Fields

We consider quantum MDS (QMDS) codes for quantum systems of dimension $q$ with lengths up to $q^2+2$ and minimum distances up to $q+1$. We show how starting from QMDS codes of length $q^2+1$ based on cyclic and constacyclic codes, new QMDS codes can be obtained by shortening. We provide numerical evidence for our conjecture that almost all admissible lengths, from a lower bound $n_0(q,d)$ on, are achievable by shortening. Some additional codes that fill gaps in the list of achievable lengths are presented as well along with a construction of a family of QMDS codes of length $q^2+2$, where $q=2^m$, that appears to be new.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Leveraging Automorphisms of Quantum Codes for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation

Fault-tolerant quantum computation is a technique that is necessary to build a scalable quantum computer from noisy physical building blocks. Key for the implementation of fault-tolerant computations is the ability to perform a universal set of quantum gates that act on the code space of an underlying quantum code. To implement such a universal gate set fault-tolerantly is an expensive task in terms of physical operations, and any possible shortcut to save operations is potentially beneficial and might lead to a reduction in overhead for fault-tolerant computations. We show how the automorphism group of a quantum code can be used to implement some operators on the encoded quantum states in a fault-tolerant way by merely permuting the physical qubits. We derive conditions that a code has to satisfy in order to have a large group of operations that can be implemented transversally when combining transversal CNOT with automorphisms. We give several examples for quantum codes with large groups, including codes with parameters [[8,3,3]], [[15,7,3]], [[22,8,4]], and [[31,11,5]]

Discrete Cosine Transforms on Quantum Computers

A classical computer does not allow to calculate a discrete cosine transform on N points in less than linear time. This trivial lower bound is no longer valid for a computer that takes advantage of quantum mechanical superposition, entanglement, and interference principles. In fact, we show that it is possible to realize the discrete cosine transforms and the discrete sine transforms of size NxN and types I,II,III, and IV with as little as O(log^2 N) operations on a quantum computer, whereas the known fast algorithms on a classical computer need O(N log N) operations.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX 2e, IEEE ISPA01, Pula, Croatia, 200

Beyond Stabilizer Codes II: Clifford Codes

Knill introduced a generalization of stabilizer codes, in this note called Clifford codes. It remained unclear whether or not Clifford codes can be superior to stabilizer codes. We show that Clifford codes are stabilizer codes provided that the abstract error group has an abelian index group. In particular, if the errors are modelled by tensor products of Pauli matrices, then the associated Clifford codes are necessarily stabilizer codes.Comment: 9 pages, LaTeX2e. Minor changes. Title changed by request of IEEE Trans. I

Shorter stabilizer circuits via Bruhat decomposition and quantum circuit transformations

In this paper we improve the layered implementation of arbitrary stabilizer circuits introduced by Aaronson and Gottesman in Phys. Rev. A 70(052328), 2004: to obtain a general stabilizer circuit, we reduce their $11$-stage computation -H-C-P-C-P-C-H-P-C-P-C- over the gate set consisting of Hadamard, Controlled-NOT, and Phase gates, into a $7$-stage computation of the form -C-CZ-P-H-P-CZ-C-. We show arguments in support of using -CZ- stages over the -C- stages: not only the use of -CZ- stages allows a shorter layered expression, but -CZ- stages are simpler and appear to be easier to implement compared to the -C- stages. Based on this decomposition, we develop a two-qubit gate depth-$(14n{-}4)$ implementation of stabilizer circuits over the gate library $\{$H, P, CNOT$\}$, executable in the Linear Nearest Neighbor (LNN) architecture, improving best previously known depth-$25n$ circuit, also executable in the LNN architecture. Our constructions rely on Bruhat decomposition of the symplectic group and on folding arbitrarily long sequences of the form $($-P-C-$)^m$ into a 3-stage computation -P-CZ-C-. Our results include the reduction of the $11$-stage decomposition -H-C-P-C-P-C-H-P-C-P-C- into a $9$-stage decomposition of the form -C-P-C-P-H-C-P-C-P-. This reduction is based on the Bruhat decomposition of the symplectic group. This result also implies a new normal form for stabilizer circuits. We show that a circuit in this normal form is optimal in the number of Hadamard gates used. We also show that the normal form has an asymptotically optimal number of parameters.Comment: Supersedes arXiv:1703.0087