Extraspecial groups form a remarkable subclass of p-groups. They are also
present in quantum information theory, in particular in quantum error
correction. We give here a polynomial time quantum algorithm for finding hidden
subgroups in extraspecial groups. Our approach is quite different from the
recent algorithms presented in [17] and [2] for the Heisenberg group, the
extraspecial p-group of size p3 and exponent p. Exploiting certain nice
automorphisms of the extraspecial groups we define specific group actions which
are used to reduce the problem to hidden subgroup instances in abelian groups
that can be dealt with directly.Comment: 10 page