arXiv subjects

Aram W. Harrow

Publications and source records attributed to Aram W. Harrow.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Product-state Approximations to Quantum Ground States

The local Hamiltonian problem consists of estimating the ground-state energy (given by the minimum eigenvalue) of a local quantum Hamiltonian. First, we show the existence of a good product-state approximation for the ground-state energy of 2-local Hamiltonians with one or more of the following properties: (1) high degree, (2) small expansion, or (3) a ground state with sublinear entanglement with respect to some partition into small pieces. The approximation based on degree is a surprising difference between quantum Hamiltonians and classical CSPs (constraint satisfaction problems), since in the classical setting, higher degree is usually associated with harder CSPs. The approximation based on low entanglement, in turn, was previously known only in the regime where the entanglement was close to zero. Since the existence of a low-energy product state can be checked in NP, the result implies that any Hamiltonian used for a quantum PCP theorem should have: (1) constant degree, (2) constant expansion, (3) a "volume law" for entanglement with respect to any partition into small parts. Second, we show that in several cases, good product-state approximations not only exist, but can be found in polynomial time: (1) 2-local Hamiltonians on any planar graph, solving an open problem of Bansal, Bravyi, and Terhal, (2) dense k-local Hamiltonians for any constant k, solving an open problem of Gharibian and Kempe, and (3) 2-local Hamiltonians on graphs with low threshold rank, via a quantum generalization of a recent result of Barak, Raghavendra and Steurer. Our work introduces two new tools which may be of independent interest. First, we prove a new quantum version of the de Finetti theorem which does not require the usual assumption of symmetry. Second, we describe a way to analyze the application of the Lasserre/Parrilo SDP hierarchy to local quantum Hamiltonians.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Hypercontractivity, Sum-of-Squares Proofs, and their Applications

We study the computational complexity of approximating the 2->q norm of linear operators (defined as ||A||_{2->q} = sup_v ||Av||_q/||v||_2), as well as connections between this question and issues arising in quantum information theory and the study of Khot's Unique Games Conjecture (UGC). We show the following: 1. For any constant even integer q>=4, a graph $G$ is a "small-set expander" if and only if the projector into the span of the top eigenvectors of G's adjacency matrix has bounded 2->q norm. As a corollary, a good approximation to the 2->q norm will refute the Small-Set Expansion Conjecture--a close variant of the UGC. We also show that such a good approximation can be obtained in exp(n^(2/q)) time, thus obtaining a different proof of the known subexponential algorithm for Small Set Expansion. 2. Constant rounds of the "Sum of Squares" semidefinite programing hierarchy certify an upper bound on the 2->4 norm of the projector to low-degree polynomials over the Boolean cube, as well certify the unsatisfiability of the "noisy cube" and "short code" based instances of Unique Games considered by prior works. This improves on the previous upper bound of exp(poly log n) rounds (for the "short code"), as well as separates the "Sum of Squares"/"Lasserre" hierarchy from weaker hierarchies that were known to require omega(1) rounds. 3. We show reductions between computing the 2->4 norm and computing the injective tensor norm of a tensor, a problem with connections to quantum information theory. Three corollaries are: (i) the 2->4 norm is NP-hard to approximate to precision inverse-polynomial in the dimension, (ii) the 2->4 norm does not have a good approximation (in the sense above) unless 3-SAT can be solved in time exp(sqrt(n) polylog(n)), and (iii) known algorithms for the quantum separability problem imply a non-trivial additive approximation for the 2->4 norm.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2014

Local tests of global entanglement and a counterexample to the generalized area law

We introduce a technique for applying quantum expanders in a distributed fashion, and use it to solve two basic questions: testing whether a bipartite quantum state shared by two parties is the maximally entangled state and disproving a generalized area law. In the process these two questions which appear completely unrelated turn out to be two sides of the same coin. Strikingly in both cases a constant amount of resources are used to verify a global property.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Quantum de Finetti Theorems under Local Measurements with Applications

Quantum de Finetti theorems are a useful tool in the study of correlations in quantum multipartite states. In this paper we prove two new quantum de Finetti theorems, both showing that under tests formed by local measurements one can get a much improved error dependence on the dimension of the subsystems. We also obtain similar results for non-signaling probability distributions. We give the following applications of the results: We prove the optimality of the Chen-Drucker protocol for 3-SAT, under the exponential time hypothesis. We show that the maximum winning probability of free games can be estimated in polynomial time by linear programming. We also show that 3-SAT with m variables can be reduced to obtaining a constant error approximation of the maximum winning probability under entangled strategies of O(m^{1/2})-player one-round non-local games, in which the players communicate O(m^{1/2}) bits all together. We show that the optimization of certain polynomials over the hypersphere can be performed in quasipolynomial time in the number of variables n by considering O(log(n)) rounds of the Sum-of-Squares (Parrilo/Lasserre) hierarchy of semidefinite programs. As an application to entanglement theory, we find a quasipolynomial-time algorithm for deciding multipartite separability. We consider a result due to Aaronson -- showing that given an unknown n qubit state one can perform tomography that works well for most observables by measuring only O(n) independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) copies of the state -- and relax the assumption of having i.i.d copies of the state to merely the ability to select subsystems at random from a quantum multipartite state. The proofs of the new quantum de Finetti theorems are based on information theory, in particular on the chain rule of mutual information.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem

Dual to the usual noisy channel coding problem, where a noisy (classical or quantum) channel is used to simulate a noiseless one, reverse Shannon theorems concern the use of noiseless channels to simulate noisy ones, and more generally the use of one noisy channel to simulate another. For channels of nonzero capacity, this simulation is always possible, but for it to be efficient, auxiliary resources of the proper kind and amount are generally required. In the classical case, shared randomness between sender and receiver is a sufficient auxiliary resource, regardless of the nature of the source, but in the quantum case the requisite auxiliary resources for efficient simulation depend on both the channel being simulated, and the source from which the channel inputs are coming. For tensor power sources (the quantum generalization of classical IID sources), entanglement in the form of standard ebits (maximally entangled pairs of qubits) is sufficient, but for general sources, which may be arbitrarily correlated or entangled across channel inputs, additional resources, such as entanglement-embezzling states or backward communication, are generally needed. Combining existing and new results, we establish the amounts of communication and auxiliary resources needed in both the classical and quantum cases, the tradeoffs among them, and the loss of simulation efficiency when auxiliary resources are absent or insufficient. In particular we find a new single-letter expression for the excess forward communication cost of coherent feedback simulations of quantum channels (i.e. simulations in which the sender retains what would escape into the environment in an ordinary simulation), on non-tensor-power sources in the presence of unlimited ebits but no other auxiliary resource. Our results on tensor power sources establish a strong converse to the entanglement-assisted capacity theorem.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Dimension-free L2 maximal inequality for spherical means in the hypercube

We establish the result of the title. In combinatorial terms this has the implication that for sufficiently small eps > 0, for all n, any marking of an eps fraction of the vertices of the n-dimensional hypercube necessarily leaves a vertex x such that marked vertices are a minority of every sphere centered at x.

math.CO↗

arXiv2013

Entanglement spread and clean resource inequalities

This article will examine states that superpose different amounts of entanglement and protocols that run in superposition but generate or consume different amounts of entanglement. In both cases we find a uniquely quantum difficulty: entanglement cannot be conditionally discarded without either using communication or causing decoherence. I will first describe the problem of entanglement spread in states and operations, as well as some methods of dealing with it. Then I'll describe three applications to problems that at first glance appear to be quite different: first, a reinterpretation of the old observation that creating n partially entangled states from singlets requires theta(sqrt(n)) communication, but cannot itself be used to communicate; second, a new lower bound technique for communication complexity; third, an explanation of how to extend the quantum reverse Shannon theorem from tensor power sources to general sources.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Uselessness for an Oracle Model with Internal Randomness

We consider a generalization of the standard oracle model in which the oracle acts on the target with a permutation selected according to internal random coins. We describe several problems that are impossible to solve classically but can be solved by a quantum algorithm using a single query; we show that such infinity-vs-one separations between classical and quantum query complexities can be constructed from much weaker separations. We also give conditions to determine when oracle problems---either in the standard model, or in any of the generalizations we consider---cannot be solved with success probability better than random guessing would achieve. In the oracle model with internal randomness where the goal is to gain any nonzero advantage over guessing, we prove (roughly speaking) that $k$ quantum queries are equivalent in power to $2k$ classical queries, thus extending results of Meyer and Pommersheim.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

The Church of the Symmetric Subspace

The symmetric subpace has many applications in quantum information theory. This review article begins by explaining key background facts about the symmetric subspace from a quantum information perspective. Then we review, and in some places extend, work of Werner and Chiribella that connects the symmetric subspace to state estimation, optimal cloning, the de Finetti theorem and other topics. In the third and final section, we discuss how the symmetric subspace can yield concentration-of-measure results via the calculation of higher moments of random quantum states. There are no new results in this article, but only some new proofs of existing results, such as a variant of the exponential de Finetti theorem. The purpose of the article is (a) pedagogical, and (b) to collect in one place many, if not all, of the quantum information applications of the symmetric subspace.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Testing product states, quantum Merlin-Arthur games and tensor optimisation

We give a test that can distinguish efficiently between product states of n quantum systems and states which are far from product. If applied to a state psi whose maximum overlap with a product state is 1-epsilon, the test passes with probability 1-Theta(epsilon), regardless of n or the local dimensions of the individual systems. The test uses two copies of psi. We prove correctness of this test as a special case of a more general result regarding stability of maximum output purity of the depolarising channel. A key application of the test is to quantum Merlin-Arthur games with multiple Merlins, where we obtain several structural results that had been previously conjectured, including the fact that efficient soundness amplification is possible and that two Merlins can simulate many Merlins: QMA(k)=QMA(2) for k>=2. Building on a previous result of Aaronson et al, this implies that there is an efficient quantum algorithm to verify 3-SAT with constant soundness, given two unentangled proofs of O(sqrt(n) polylog(n)) qubits. We also show how QMA(2) with log-sized proofs is equivalent to a large number of problems, some related to quantum information (such as testing separability of mixed states) as well as problems without any apparent connection to quantum mechanics (such as computing injective tensor norms of 3-index tensors). As a consequence, we obtain many hardness-of-approximation results, as well as potential algorithmic applications of methods for approximating QMA(2) acceptance probabilities. Finally, our test can also be used to construct an efficient test for determining whether a unitary operator is a tensor product, which is a generalisation of classical linearity testing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Counterexamples to Kalai's Conjecture C

We provide two simple counterexamples to Kalai's Conjecture C and discuss our perspective on the implications for the prospect of large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Superactivation of the Asymptotic Zero-Error Classical Capacity of a Quantum Channel

The zero-error classical capacity of a quantum channel is the asymptotic rate at which it can be used to send classical bits perfectly, so that they can be decoded with zero probability of error. We show that there exist pairs of quantum channels, neither of which individually have any zero-error capacity whatsoever (even if arbitrarily many uses of the channels are available), but such that access to even a single copy of both channels allows classical information to be sent perfectly reliably. In other words, we prove that the zero-error classical capacity can be superactivated. This result is the first example of superactivation of a classical capacity of a quantum channel.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Entanglement can completely defeat quantum noise

We describe two quantum channels that individually cannot send any information, even classical, without some chance of decoding error. But together a single use of each channel can send quantum information perfectly reliably. This proves that the zero-error classical capacity exhibits superactivation, the extreme form of the superadditivity phenomenon in which entangled inputs allow communication over zero capacity channels. But our result is stronger still, as it even allows zero-error quantum communication when the two channels are combined. Thus our result shows a new remarkable way in which entanglement across two systems can be used to resist noise, in this case perfectly. We also show a new form of superactivation by entanglement shared between sender and receiver.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Limitations on quantum dimensionality reduction

The Johnson-Lindenstrauss Lemma is a classic result which implies that any set of n real vectors can be compressed to O(log n) dimensions while only distorting pairwise Euclidean distances by a constant factor. Here we consider potential extensions of this result to the compression of quantum states. We show that, by contrast with the classical case, there does not exist any distribution over quantum channels that significantly reduces the dimension of quantum states while preserving the 2-norm distance with high probability. We discuss two tasks for which the 2-norm distance is indeed the correct figure of merit. In the case of the trace norm, we show that the dimension of low-rank mixed states can be reduced by up to a square root, but that essentially no dimensionality reduction is possible for highly mixed states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

A communication-efficient nonlocal measurement with application to communication complexity and bipartite gate capacities

Two dual questions in quantum information theory are to determine the communication cost of simulating a bipartite unitary gate, and to determine their communication capacities. We present a bipartite unitary gate with two surprising properties: 1) simulating it with the assistance of unlimited EPR pairs requires far more communication than with a better choice of entangled state, and 2) its communication capacity is far lower than its capacity to create entanglement. This suggests that 1) unlimited EPR pairs are not the most general model of entanglement assistance for two-party communication tasks, and 2) the entangling and communicating abilities of a unitary interaction can vary nearly independently. The technical contribution behind these results is a communication-efficient protocol for measuring whether an unknown shared state lies in a specified rank-one subspace or its orthogonal complement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Random tensor theory: extending random matrix theory to random product states

We consider a problem in random matrix theory that is inspired by quantum information theory: determining the largest eigenvalue of a sum of p random product states in (C^d)^{otimes k}, where k and p/d^k are fixed while d grows. When k=1, the Marcenko-Pastur law determines (up to small corrections) not only the largest eigenvalue ((1+sqrt{p/d^k})^2) but the smallest eigenvalue (min(0,1-sqrt{p/d^k})^2) and the spectral density in between. We use the method of moments to show that for k>1 the largest eigenvalue is still approximately (1+sqrt{p/d^k})^2 and the spectral density approaches that of the Marcenko-Pastur law, generalizing the random matrix theory result to the random tensor case. Our bound on the largest eigenvalue has implications both for sampling from a particular heavy-tailed distribution and for a recently proposed quantum data-hiding and correlation-locking scheme due to Leung and Winter. Since the matrices we consider have neither independent entries nor unitary invariance, we need to develop new techniques for their analysis. The main contribution of this paper is to give three different methods for analyzing mixtures of random product states: a diagrammatic approach based on Gaussian integrals, a combinatorial method that looks at the cycle decompositions of permutations and a recursive method that uses a variant of the Schwinger-Dyson equations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Efficient Quantum Tensor Product Expanders and k-designs

Quantum expanders are a quantum analogue of expanders, and k-tensor product expanders are a generalisation to graphs that randomise k correlated walkers. Here we give an efficient construction of constant-degree, constant-gap quantum k-tensor product expanders. The key ingredients are an efficient classical tensor product expander and the quantum Fourier transform. Our construction works whenever k=O(n/log n), where n is the number of qubits. An immediate corollary of this result is an efficient construction of an approximate unitary k-design, which is a quantum analogue of an approximate k-wise independent function, on n qubits for any k=O(n/log n). Previously, no efficient constructions were known for k>2, while state designs, of which unitary designs are a generalisation, were constructed efficiently in [Ambainis, Emerson 2007].

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Random Quantum Circuits are Approximate 2-designs

Given a universal gate set on two qubits, it is well known that applying random gates from the set to random pairs of qubits will eventually yield an approximately Haar-distributed unitary. However, this requires exponential time. We show that random circuits of only polynomial length will approximate the first and second moments of the Haar distribution, thus forming approximate 1- and 2-designs. Previous constructions required longer circuits and worked only for specific gate sets. As a corollary of our main result, we also improve previous bounds on the convergence rate of random walks on the Clifford group.

quant-ph↗