arXiv subjects

Edward Farhi

Publications and source records attributed to Edward Farhi.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Perturbative Gadgets at Arbitrary Orders

Adiabatic quantum algorithms are often most easily formulated using many-body interactions. However, experimentally available interactions are generally two-body. In 2004, Kempe, Kitaev, and Regev introduced perturbative gadgets, by which arbitrary three-body effective interactions can be obtained using Hamiltonians consisting only of two-body interactions. These three-body effective interactions arise from the third order in perturbation theory. Since their introduction, perturbative gadgets have become a standard tool in the theory of quantum computation. Here we construct generalized gadgets so that one can directly obtain arbitrary k-body effective interactions from two-body Hamiltonians. These effective interactions arise from the kth order in perturbation theory.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Unfrustrated Qudit Chains and their Ground States

We investigate chains of 'd' dimensional quantum spins (qudits) on a line with generic nearest neighbor interactions without translational invariance. We find the conditions under which these systems are not frustrated, i.e. when the ground states are also the common ground states of all the local terms in the Hamiltonians. The states of a quantum spin chain are naturally represented in the Matrix Product States (MPS) framework. Using imaginary time evolution in the MPS ansatz, we numerically investigate the range of parameters in which we expect the ground states to be highly entangled and find them hard to approximate using our MPS method.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2011

Quantum state restoration and single-copy tomography

Given a single copy of an n qubit quantum state |psi>, the no-cloning theorem greatly limits the amount of information which can be extracted from it. Moreover, given only a procedure which verifies the state, for example a procedure which measures the operator |psi> in time polynomial in n . In this paper, we consider the scenario in which we are given both a single copy of |psi> and the ability to verify it. We show that in this setting, we can do several novel things efficiently. We present a new algorithm that we call quantum state restoration which allows us to extend a large subsystem of |psi> to the full state, and in turn this allows us to copy small subsystems of |psi>. In addition, we present algorithms that can perform tomography on small subsystems of |psi>, and we show how to use these algorithms to estimate the statistics of any efficiently implementable POVM acting on |psi> in time polynomial in the number of outcomes of the POVM.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Unstructured Randomness, Small Gaps and Localization

We study the Hamiltonian associated with the quantum adiabatic algorithm with a random cost function. Because the cost function lacks structure we can prove results about the ground state. We find the ground state energy as the number of bits goes to infinity, show that the minimum gap goes to zero exponentially quickly, and we see a localization transition. We prove that there are no levels approaching the ground state near the end of the evolution. We do not know which features of this model are shared by a quantum adiabatic algorithm applied to random instances of satisfiability since despite being random they do have bit structure.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Quantum Adiabatic Algorithms, Small Gaps, and Different Paths

We construct a set of instances of 3SAT which are not solved efficiently using the simplest quantum adiabatic algorithm. These instances are obtained by picking random clauses all consistent with two disparate planted solutions and then penalizing one of them with a single additional clause. We argue that by randomly modifying the beginning Hamiltonian, one obtains (with substantial probability) an adiabatic path that removes this difficulty. This suggests that the quantum adiabatic algorithm should in general be run on each instance with many different random paths leading to the problem Hamiltonian. We do not know whether this trick will help for a random instance of 3SAT (as opposed to an instance from the particular set we consider), especially if the instance has an exponential number of disparate assignments that violate few clauses. We use a continuous imaginary time Quantum Monte Carlo algorithm in a novel way to numerically investigate the ground state as well as the first excited state of our system. Our arguments are supplemented by Quantum Monte Carlo data from simulations with up to 150 spins.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Quantum money from knots

Quantum money is a cryptographic protocol in which a mint can produce a quantum state, no one else can copy the state, and anyone (with a quantum computer) can verify that the state came from the mint. We present a concrete quantum money scheme based on superpositions of diagrams that encode oriented links with the same Alexander polynomial. We expect our scheme to be secure against computationally bounded adversaries.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Breaking and making quantum money: toward a new quantum cryptographic protocol

Public-key quantum money is a cryptographic protocol in which a bank can create quantum states which anyone can verify but no one except possibly the bank can clone or forge. There are no secure public-key quantum money schemes in the literature; as we show in this paper, the only previously published scheme [1] is insecure. We introduce a category of quantum money protocols which we call collision-free. For these protocols, even the bank cannot prepare multiple identical-looking pieces of quantum money. We present a blueprint for how such a protocol might work as well as a concrete example which we believe may be insecure.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

A Quantum Monte Carlo Method at Fixed Energy

In this paper we explore new ways to study the zero temperature limit of quantum statistical mechanics using Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We develop a Quantum Monte Carlo method in which one fixes the ground state energy as a parameter. The Hamiltonians we consider are of the form $H=H_{0}+λV$ with ground state energy E. For fixed $H_{0}$ and V, one can view E as a function of $λ$ whereas we view $λ$ as a function of E. We fix E and define a path integral Quantum Monte Carlo method in which a path makes no reference to the times (discrete or continuous) at which transitions occur between states. For fixed E we can determine $λ(E)$ and other ground state properties of H.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2007

The Quantum Transverse Field Ising Model on an Infinite Tree from Matrix Product States

We give a generalization to an infinite tree geometry of Vidal's infinite time-evolving block decimation (iTEBD) algorithm for simulating an infinite line of quantum spins. We numerically investigate the quantum Ising model in a transverse field on the Bethe lattice using the Matrix Product State ansatz. We observe a second order phase transition, with certain key differences from the transverse field Ising model on an infinite spin chain. We also investigate a transverse field Ising model with a specific longitudinal field. When the transverse field is turned off, this model has a highly degenerate ground state as opposed to the pure Ising model whose ground state is only doubly degenerate.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2006

Error correcting codes for adiabatic quantum computation

Recently, there has been growing interest in using adiabatic quantum computation as an architecture for experimentally realizable quantum computers. One of the reasons for this is the idea that the energy gap should provide some inherent resistance to noise. It is now known that universal quantum computation can be achieved adiabatically using 2-local Hamiltonians. The energy gap in these Hamiltonians scales as an inverse polynomial in the problem size. Here we present stabilizer codes which can be used to produce a constant energy gap against 1-local and 2-local noise. The corresponding fault-tolerant universal Hamiltonians are 4-local and 6-local respectively, which is the optimal result achievable within this framework.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

How to Make the Quantum Adiabatic Algorithm Fail

The quantum adiabatic algorithm is a Hamiltonian based quantum algorithm designed to find the minimum of a classical cost function whose domain has size N. We show that poor choices for the Hamiltonian can guarantee that the algorithm will not find the minimum if the run time grows more slowly than square root of N. These poor choices are nonlocal and wash out any structure in the cost function to be minimized and the best that can be hoped for is Grover speedup. These failures tell us what not to do when designing quantum adiabatic algorithms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Exponential algorithmic speedup by quantum walk

We construct an oracular (i.e., black box) problem that can be solved exponentially faster on a quantum computer than on a classical computer. The quantum algorithm is based on a continuous time quantum walk, and thus employs a different technique from previous quantum algorithms based on quantum Fourier transforms. We show how to implement the quantum walk efficiently in our oracular setting. We then show how this quantum walk can be used to solve our problem by rapidly traversing a graph. Finally, we prove that no classical algorithm can solve this problem with high probability in subexponential time.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Quantum Adiabatic Evolution Algorithms with Different Paths

In quantum adiabatic evolution algorithms, the quantum computer follows the ground state of a slowly varying Hamiltonian. The ground state of the initial Hamiltonian is easy to construct; the ground state of the final Hamiltonian encodes the solution of the computational problem. These algorithms have generally been studied in the case where the "straight line" path from initial to final Hamiltonian is taken. But there is no reason not to try paths involving terms that are not linear combinations of the initial and final Hamiltonians. We give several proposals for randomly generating new paths. Using one of these proposals, we convert an algorithmic failure into a success.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Quantum search by measurement

We propose a quantum algorithm for solving combinatorial search problems that uses only a sequence of measurements. The algorithm is similar in spirit to quantum computation by adiabatic evolution, in that the goal is to remain in the ground state of a time-varying Hamiltonian. Indeed, we show that the running times of the two algorithms are closely related. We also show how to achieve the quadratic speedup for Grover's unstructured search problem with only two measurements. Finally, we discuss some similarities and differences between the adiabatic and measurement algorithms.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2002

Quantum Adiabatic Evolution Algorithms versus Simulated Annealing

We explain why quantum adiabatic evolution and simulated annealing perform similarly in certain examples of searching for the minimum of a cost function of n bits. In these examples each bit is treated symmetrically so the cost function depends only on the Hamming weight of the n bits. We also give two examples, closely related to these, where the similarity breaks down in that the quantum adiabatic algorithm succeeds in polynomial time whereas simulated annealing requires exponential time.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

Robustness of adiabatic quantum computation

We study the fault tolerance of quantum computation by adiabatic evolution, a quantum algorithm for solving various combinatorial search problems. We describe an inherent robustness of adiabatic computation against two kinds of errors, unitary control errors and decoherence, and we study this robustness using numerical simulations of the algorithm.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

A Quantum Adiabatic Evolution Algorithm Applied to Random Instances of an NP-Complete Problem

A quantum system will stay near its instantaneous ground state if the Hamiltonian that governs its evolution varies slowly enough. This quantum adiabatic behavior is the basis of a new class of algorithms for quantum computing. We test one such algorithm by applying it to randomly generated, hard, instances of an NP-complete problem. For the small examples that we can simulate, the quantum adiabatic algorithm works well, and provides evidence that quantum computers (if large ones can be built) may be able to outperform ordinary computers on hard sets of instances of NP-complete problems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

An example of the difference between quantum and classical random walks

In this note, we discuss a general definition of quantum random walks on graphs and illustrate with a simple graph the possibility of very different behavior between a classical random walk and its quantum analogue. In this graph, propagation between a particular pair of nodes is exponentially faster in the quantum case.

quant-ph↗