arXiv subjects

Alain Tapp

Publications and source records attributed to Alain Tapp.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2004

Quantum Pseudo-Telepathy

Quantum information processing is at the crossroads of physics, mathematics and computer science. It is concerned with that we can and cannot do with quantum information that goes beyond the abilities of classical information processing devices. Communication complexity is an area of classical computer science that aims at quantifying the amount of communication necessary to solve distributed computational problems. Quantum communication complexity uses quantum mechanics to reduce the amount of communication that would be classically required. Pseudo-telepathy is a surprising application of quantum information processing to communication complexity. Thanks to entanglement, perhaps the most nonclassical manifestation of quantum mechanics, two or more quantum players can accomplish a distributed task with no need for communication whatsoever, which would be an impossible feat for classical players. After a detailed overview of the principle and purpose of pseudo-telepathy, we present a survey of recent and no-so-recent work on the subject. In particular, we describe and analyse all the pseudo-telepathy games currently known to the authors.

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arXiv2003

Multi-Party Pseudo-Telepathy

Quantum entanglement, perhaps the most non-classical manifestation of quantum information theory, cannot be used to transmit information between remote parties. Yet, it can be used to reduce the amount of communication required to process a variety of distributed computational tasks. We speak of pseudo-telepathy when quantum entanglement serves to eliminate the classical need to communicate. In earlier examples of pseudo-telepathy, classical protocols could succeed with high probability unless the inputs were very large. Here we present a simple multi-party distributed problem for which the inputs and outputs consist of a single bit per player, and we present a perfect quantum protocol for it. We prove that no classical protocol can succeed with a probability that differs from 1/2 by more than a fraction that is exponentially small in the number of players. This could be used to circumvent the detection loophole in experimental tests of nonlocality.

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arXiv2002

The Impossibility of Pseudo-Telepathy Without Quantum Entanglement

Imagine that Alice and Bob, unable to communicate, are both given a 16-bit string such that the strings are either equal, or they differ in exactly 8 positions. Both parties are then supposed to output a 4-bit string in such a way that these short strings are equal if and only if the original longer strings given to them were equal as well. It is known that this task can be fulfilled without failure and without communication if Alice and Bob share 4 maximally entangled quantum bits. We show that, on the other hand, they CANNOT win the same game with certainty if they only share classical bits, even if it is an unlimited number. This means that for fulfilling this particular distributed task, quantum entanglement can completely replace communication. This phenomenon has been called pseudo-telepathy. The results of this paper complete the analysis of the first proposed game of this type between two players.

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arXiv2002

Authentication of Quantum Messages

Authentication is a well-studied area of classical cryptography: a sender S and a receiver R sharing a classical private key want to exchange a classical message with the guarantee that the message has not been modified by any third party with control of the communication line. In this paper we define and investigate the authentication of messages composed of quantum states. Assuming S and R have access to an insecure quantum channel and share a private, classical random key, we provide a non-interactive scheme that enables S both to encrypt and to authenticate (with unconditional security) an m qubit message by encoding it into m+s qubits, where the failure probability decreases exponentially in the security parameter s. The classical private key is 2m+O(s) bits. To achieve this, we give a highly efficient protocol for testing the purity of shared EPR pairs. We also show that any scheme to authenticate quantum messages must also encrypt them. (In contrast, one can authenticate a classical message while leaving it publicly readable.) This has two important consequences: On one hand, it allows us to give a lower bound of 2m key bits for authenticating m qubits, which makes our protocol asymptotically optimal. On the other hand, we use it to show that digitally signing quantum states is impossible, even with only computational security.

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arXiv2000

Quantum Amplitude Amplification and Estimation

Consider a Boolean function $χ: X \to \{0,1\}$ that partitions set $X$ between its good and bad elements, where $x$ is good if $χ(x)=1$ and bad otherwise. Consider also a quantum algorithm $\mathcal A$ such that $A |0\rangle= \sum_{x\in X} α_x |x\rangle$ is a quantum superposition of the elements of $X$, and let $a$ denote the probability that a good element is produced if $A |0\rangle$ is measured. If we repeat the process of running $A$, measuring the output, and using $χ$ to check the validity of the result, we shall expect to repeat $1/a$ times on the average before a solution is found. *Amplitude amplification* is a process that allows to find a good $x$ after an expected number of applications of $A$ and its inverse which is proportional to $1/\sqrt{a}$, assuming algorithm $A$ makes no measurements. This is a generalization of Grover's searching algorithm in which $A$ was restricted to producing an equal superposition of all members of $X$ and we had a promise that a single $x$ existed such that $χ(x)=1$. Our algorithm works whether or not the value of $a$ is known ahead of time. In case the value of $a$ is known, we can find a good $x$ after a number of applications of $A$ and its inverse which is proportional to $1/\sqrt{a}$ even in the worst case. We show that this quadratic speedup can also be obtained for a large family of search problems for which good classical heuristics exist. Finally, as our main result, we combine ideas from Grover's and Shor's quantum algorithms to perform amplitude estimation, a process that allows to estimate the value of $a$. We apply amplitude estimation to the problem of *approximate counting*, in which we wish to estimate the number of $x\in X$ such that $χ(x)=1$. We obtain optimal quantum algorithms in a variety of settings.

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arXiv2000

Private Quantum Channels and the Cost of Randomizing Quantum Information

We investigate how a classical private key can be used by two players, connected by an insecure one-way quantum channel, to perform private communication of quantum information. In particular we show that in order to transmit n qubits privately, 2n bits of shared private key are necessary and sufficient. This result may be viewed as the quantum analogue of the classical one-time pad encryption scheme. From the point of view of the eavesdropper, this encryption process can be seen as a randomization of the original state. We thus also obtain strict bounds on the amount of entropy necessary for randomizing n qubits.

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arXiv1999

Multiparty Quantum Communication Complexity

Quantum entanglement cannot be used to achieve direct communication between remote parties, but it can reduce the communication needed for some problems. Let each of k parties hold some partial input data to some fixed k-variable function f. The communication complexity of f is the minimum number of classical bits required to be broadcasted for every party to know the value of f on their inputs. We construct a function G such that for the one-round communication model and three parties, G can be computed with n+1 bits of communication when the parties share prior entanglement. We then show that without entangled particles, the one-round communication complexity of G is (3/2)n + 1. Next we generalize this function to a function F. We show that if the parties share prior quantum entanglement, then the communication complexity of F is exactly k. We also show that if no entangled particles are provided, then the communication complexity of F is roughly k*log(k). These two results prove for the first time communication complexity separations better than a constant number of bits.

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arXiv1999

The cost of exactly simulating quantum entanglement with classical communication

We investigate the amount of communication that must augment classical local hidden variable models in order to simulate the behaviour of entangled quantum systems. We consider the scenario where a bipartite measurement is given from a set of possibilities and the goal is to obtain exactly the same correlations that arise when the actual quantum system is measured. We show that, in the case of a single pair of qubits in a Bell state, a constant number of bits of communication is always sufficient--regardless of the number of measurements under consideration. We also show that, in the case of a system of n Bell states, a constant times 2^n bits of communication are necessary.

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arXiv1998

Quantum Counting

We study some extensions of Grover's quantum searching algorithm. First, we generalize the Grover iteration in the light of a concept called amplitude amplification. Then, we show that the quadratic speedup obtained by the quantum searching algorithm over classical brute force can still be obtained for a large family of search problems for which good classical heuristics exist. Finally, as our main result, we combine ideas from Grover's and Shor's quantum algorithms to perform approximate counting, which can be seen as an amplitude estimation process.

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arXiv1998

Quantum Entanglement and the Communication Complexity of the Inner Product Function

We consider the communication complexity of the binary inner product function in a variation of the two-party scenario where the parties have an a priori supply of particles in an entangled quantum state. We prove linear lower bounds for both exact protocols, as well as for protocols that determine the answer with bounded-error probability. Our proofs employ a novel kind of "quantum" reduction from a quantum information theory problem to the problem of computing the inner product. The communication required for the former problem can then be bounded by an application of Holevo's theorem. We also give a specific example of a probabilistic scenario where entanglement reduces the communication complexity of the inner product function by one bit.

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arXiv1997

Quantum Algorithm for the Collision Problem

In this note, we give a quantum algorithm that finds collisions in arbitrary r-to-one functions after only O((N/r)^(1/3)) expected evaluations of the function. Assuming the function is given by a black box, this is more efficient than the best possible classical algorithm, even allowing probabilism. We also give a similar algorithm for finding claws in pairs of functions. Furthermore, we exhibit a space-time tradeoff for our technique. Our approach uses Grover's quantum searching algorithm in a novel way.

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arXiv1996

Tight bounds on quantum searching

We provide a tight analysis of Grover's recent algorithm for quantum database searching. We give a simple closed-form formula for the probability of success after any given number of iterations of the algorithm. This allows us to determine the number of iterations necessary to achieve almost certainty of finding the answer. Furthermore, we analyse the behaviour of the algorithm when the element to be found appears more than once in the table and we provide a new algorithm to find such an element even when the number of solutions is not known ahead of time. Using techniques from Shor's quantum factoring algorithm in addition to Grover's approach, we introduce a new technique for approximate quantum counting, which allows to estimate the number of solutions. Finally we provide a lower bound on the efficiency of any possible quantum database searching algorithm and we show that Grover's algorithm nearly comes within a factor 2 of being optimal in terms of the number of probes required in the table.

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