Julia Kempe

Quantum random walks: An introductory overview

This article aims to provide an introductory survey on quantum random walks. Starting from a physical effect to illustrate the main ideas we will introduce quantum random walks, review some of their properties and outline their striking differences to classical walks. We will touch upon both physical effects and computer science applications, introducing some of the main concepts and language of present day quantum information science in this context. We will mention recent developments in this new area and outline some open questions.

Quantum random-walk search algorithm

Quantum random walks on graphs have been shown to display many interesting properties, including exponentially fast hitting times when compared with their classical counterparts. However, it is still unclear how to use these novel properties to gain an algorithmic speedup over classical algorithms. In this paper, we present a quantum search algorithm based on the quantum random-walk architecture that provides such a speedup. It will be shown that this algorithm performs an oracle search on a database of N items with

Quantum walks on graphs

O(\sqrt{N})

Universal quantum computation with the exchange interaction

calls to the oracle, yielding a speedup similar to other quantum search algorithms. It appears that the quantum random-walk formulation has considerable flexibility, presenting interesting opportunities for development of other, possibly novel quantum algorithms.

Adiabatic Quantum Computation is Equivalent to Standard Quantum Computation

We set the ground for a theory of quantum walks on graphs-the generalization of random walks on finite graphs to the quantum world. Such quantum walks do not converge to any stationary distribution, as they are unitary and reversible. However, by suitably relaxing the definition, we can obtain a measure of how fast the quantum walk spreads or how confined the quantum walk stays in a small neighborhood. We give definitions of mixing time, filling time, dispersion time. We show that in all these measures, the quantum walk on the cycle is almost quadratically faster then its classical correspondent. On the other hand, we give a lower bound on the possible speed up by quantum walks for general graphs, showing that quantum walks can be at most polynomially faster than their classical counterparts.

The Complexity of the Local Hamiltonian Problem

Various physical implementations of quantum computers are being investigated, although the requirements that must be met to make such devices a reality in the laboratory at present involve capabilities well beyond the state of the art. Recent solid-state approaches have used quantum dots, donor-atom nuclear spins or electron spins; in these architectures, the basic two-qubit quantum gate is generated by a tunable exchange interaction between spins (a Heisenberg interaction), whereas the one-qubit gates require control over a local magnetic field. Compared to the Heisenberg operation, the one-qubit operations are significantly slower, requiring substantially greater materials and device complexity—potentially contributing to a detrimental increase in the decoherence rate. Here we introduced an explicit scheme in which the Heisenberg interaction alone suffices to implement exactly any quantum computer circuit. This capability comes at a price of a factor of three in additional qubits, and about a factor of ten in additional two-qubit operations. Even at this cost, the ability to eliminate the complexity of one-qubit operations should accelerate progress towards solid-state implementations of quantum computation.

Theory of decoherence-free fault-tolerant universal quantum computation

Adiabatic quantum computation has recently attracted attention in the physics and computer science communities, but its computational power was unknown. We describe an efficient adiabatic simulation of any given quantum algorithm, which implies that the adiabatic computation model and the conventional quantum computation model are polynomially equivalent. Our result can be extended to the physically realistic setting of particles arranged on a two-dimensional grid with nearest neighbor interactions. The equivalence between the models allows stating the main open problems in quantum computation using well-studied mathematical objects such as eigenvectors and spectral gaps of sparse matrices.

Adiabatic quantum computation is equivalent to standard quantum computation

The k-LOCAL HAMILTONIAN problem is a natural complete problem for the complexity class QMA, the quantum analog of NP. It is similar in spirit to MAX-k-SAT, which is NP-complete for k > 2. It was known that the problem is QMA-complete for any k > 3. On the other hand 1-LOCAL HAMILTONIAN is in P, and hence not believed to be QMA-complete. The complexity of the 2-LOCAL HAMILTONIAN problem has long been outstanding. Here we settle the question and show that it is QMA-complete. We provide two independent proofs; our first proof uses a powerful technique for analyzing the sum of two Hamiltonians; this technique is based on perturbation theory and we believe that it might prove useful elsewhere. The second proof uses elementary linear algebra only. Using our techniques we also show that adiabatic computation with two-local interactions on qubits is equivalent to standard quantum computation.

Separable States Are More Disordered Globally than Locally

Universal quantum computation on decoherence-free subspaces and subsystems ~DFSs! is examined with particular emphasis on using only physically relevant interactions. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of decoherence-free ~noiseless! subsystems in the Markovian regime is derived here for the first time. A stabilizer formalism for DFSs is then developed which allows for the explicit understanding of these in their dual role as quantum error correcting codes. Conditions for the existence of Hamiltonians whose induced evolution always preserves a DFS are derived within this stabilizer formalism. Two possible collective decoherence mechanisms arising from permutation symmetries of the system-bath coupling are examined within this framework. It is shown that in both cases universal quantum computation which always preserves the DFS ~natural fault-tolerant computation! can be performed using only two-body interactions. This is in marked contrast to standard error correcting codes, where all known constructions using one- or two-body interactions must leave the code space during the on-time of the fault-tolerant gates. A further consequence of our universality construction is that a single exchange Hamiltonian can be used to perform universal quantum computation on an encoded space whose asymptotic coding efficiency is unity. The exchange Hamiltonian, which is naturally present in many quantum systems, is thus asymptotically universal.

Universal Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computation on Decoherence-Free Subspaces

The model of adiabatic quantum computation has recently attracted attention in the physics and computer science communities, but its exact computational power has been unknown. We settle this question and describe an efficient adiabatic simulation of any given quantum algorithm. This implies that the adiabatic computation model and the standard quantum circuit model are polynomially equivalent. We also describe an extension of this result with implications to physical implementations of adiabatic computation. We believe that our result highlights the potential importance of the adiabatic computation model in the design of quantum algorithms and in their experimental realization.