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Xiaoming Sun

Publications and source records attributed to Xiaoming Sun.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Towards Optimal Circuit Size for Sparse Quantum State Preparation

Compared to general quantum states, the sparse states arise more frequently in the field of quantum computation. In this work, we consider the preparation for $n$-qubit sparse quantum states with $s$ non-zero amplitudes and propose two algorithms. The first algorithm uses $O(ns/\log n + n)$ gates, improving upon previous methods by $O(\log n)$. We further establish a matching lower bound for any algorithm which is not amplitude-aware and employs at most $\operatorname{poly}(n)$ ancillary qubits. The second algorithm is tailored for binary strings that exhibit a short Hamiltonian path. An application is the preparation of $U(1)$-invariant state with $k$ down-spins in a chain of length $n$, including Bethe states, for which our algorithm constructs a circuit of size $O\left(\binom{n}{k}\log n\right)$. This surpasses previous results by $O(n/\log n)$ and is close to the lower bound $O\left(\binom{n}{k}\right)$. Both the two algorithms shrink the existing gap theoretically and provide increasing advantages numerically.

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Shallow Quantum Circuit Implementation of Symmetric Functions with Limited Ancillary Qubits

In quantum computation, optimizing depth and number of ancillary qubits in quantum circuits is crucial due to constraints imposed by current quantum devices. This paper presents an innovative approach to implementing arbitrary symmetric Boolean functions using poly-logarithmic depth quantum circuits with logarithmic number of ancillary qubits. Symmetric functions are those whose outputs rely solely on the Hamming weight of the inputs. These functions find applications across diverse domains, including quantum machine learning, arithmetic circuit synthesis, and quantum algorithm design (e.g., Grover's algorithm). Moreover, by fully leveraging the potential of qutrits (an additional energy level), the ancilla count can be further reduced to 1. The key technique involves a novel poly-logarithmic depth quantum circuit designed to compute Hamming weight without the need for ancillary qubits. The quantum circuit for Hamming weight is of independent interest because of its broad applications, such as quantum memory and quantum machine learning.

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Efficient Quantum Circuits for Machine Learning Activation Functions including Constant T-depth ReLU

In recent years, Quantum Machine Learning (QML) has increasingly captured the interest of researchers. Among the components in this domain, activation functions hold a fundamental and indispensable role. Our research focuses on the development of activation functions quantum circuits for integration into fault-tolerant quantum computing architectures, with an emphasis on minimizing $T$-depth. Specifically, we present novel implementations of ReLU and leaky ReLU activation functions, achieving constant $T$-depths of 4 and 8, respectively. Leveraging quantum lookup tables, we extend our exploration to other activation functions such as the sigmoid. This approach enables us to customize precision and $T$-depth by adjusting the number of qubits, making our results more adaptable to various application scenarios. This study represents a significant advancement towards enhancing the practicality and application of quantum machine learning.

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Error mitigated shadow estimation based on virtual distillation

Shadow estimation is a method for deducing numerous properties of an unknown quantum state through a limited set of measurements, which suffers from noises in quantum devices. In this paper, we introduce an error-mitigated shadow estimation approach based on virtual distillation, tailored for applications in near-term quantum devices. Our methodology leverages the qubit reset technique, thereby reducing the associated qubit overhead. Crucially, our approach ensures that the required qubit resources remain independent of the desired accuracy and avoid an exponential measurement overhead, marking a substantial advancement in practical applications. Furthermore, our technique accommodates a mixed Clifford and Pauli-type shadow, which can result in a reduction in the number of required measurements across various scenarios. We also study the trade-off between circuit depth and measurement overhead quantitatively. Through numerical simulations, we substantiate the efficacy of our error mitigation method, establishing its utility in enhancing the robustness of shadow estimations on near-term quantum devices.

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Quantum circuit for multi-qubit Toffoli gate with optimal resource

Resource consumption is an important issue in quantum information processing, particularly during the present NISQ era. In this paper, we investigate resource optimization of implementing multiple controlled operations, which are fundamental building blocks in the field of quantum computing and quantum simulation. We design new quantum circuits for the $n$-Toffoli gate and general multi-controlled unitary, which have only $O(\log n)$-depth and $O(n)$-size, and only require $1$ ancillary qubit. To achieve these results, we explore the potential of ancillary qubits and discover a method to create new conditional clean qubits from existed ancillary qubits. These techniques can also be utilized to construct an efficient quantum circuit for incrementor, leading to an implementation of multi-qubit Toffoli gate with a depth of $O(\log^2n)$ and size of $O(n)$ without any ancillary qubits. Furthermore, we explore the power of ancillary qubits from the perspective of resource theory. We demonstrate that without the assistance of ancillary qubit, any quantum circuit implementation of multi-qubit Toffoli gate must employ exponential precision gates. This finding indicates a significant disparity in computational power of quantum circuits between using and not using ancillary qubits. Additionally, we discuss the comparison of the power of ancillary qubits and extra energy levels in quantum circuit design.

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Improved Real-time Post-Processing for Quantum Random Number Generators

Randomness extraction is a key problem in cryptography and theoretical computer science. With the recent rapid development of quantum cryptography, quantum-proof randomness extraction has also been widely studied, addressing the security issues in the presence of a quantum adversary. In contrast with conventional quantum-proof randomness extractors characterizing the input raw data as min-entropy sources, we find that the input raw data generated by a large class of trusted-device quantum random number generators can be characterized as the so-called reverse block source. This fact enables us to design improved extractors. Specifically, we propose two novel quantum-proof randomness extractors for reverse block sources that realize real-time block-wise extraction. In comparison with the general min-entropy randomness extractors, our designs achieve a significantly higher extraction speed and a longer output data length with the same seed length. In addition, they enjoy the property of online algorithms, which process the raw data on the fly without waiting for the entire input raw data to be available. These features make our design an adequate choice for the real-time post-processing of practical quantum random number generators. Applying our extractors to the raw data generated by a widely used quantum random number generator, we achieve a simulated extraction speed as high as $300$ Gbps.

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Improved Deterministic Streaming Algorithms for Non-monotone Submodular Maximization

Submodular maximization is one of the central topics in combinatorial optimization. It has found numerous applications in the real world. Streaming algorithms for submodule maximization have gained attention in recent years, allowing for real-time processing of large data sets by looking at each piece of data only once. However, most of the state-of-the-art algorithms are subject to monotone cardinality constraint. There remain non-negligible gaps with respect to approximation ratios between cardinality and other constraints like $d$-knapsack in non-monotone submodular maximization. In this paper, we propose deterministic algorithms with improved approximation ratios for non-monotone submodular maximization. Specifically, for the cardinality constraint, we provide a deterministic $1/6-ε$ approximation algorithm with $O(\frac{k\log k}ε)$ memory and sublinear query time, while the previous best algorithm is randomized with a $0.1921$ approximation ratio. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first deterministic streaming algorithm for the cardinality constraint. For the $d$-knapsack constraint, we provide a deterministic $\frac{1}{4(d+1)}-ε$ approximation algorithm with $O(\frac{b\log b}ε)$ memory and $O(\frac{\log b}ε)$ query time per element. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no streaming algorithm for this constraint.

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A hybrid algorithm for quadratically constrained quadratic optimization problems

Quadratically Constrained Quadratic Programs (QCQPs) are an important class of optimization problems with diverse real-world applications. In this work, we propose a variational quantum algorithm for general QCQPs. By encoding the variables on the amplitude of a quantum state, the requirement of the qubit number scales logarithmically with the dimension of the variables, which makes our algorithm suitable for current quantum devices. Using the primal-dual interior-point method in classical optimization, we can deal with general quadratic constraints. Our numerical experiments on typical QCQP problems, including Max-Cut and optimal power flow problems, demonstrate a better performance of our hybrid algorithm over the classical counterparts.

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Hybrid algorithm simulating non-equilibrium steady states of an open quantum system

Non-equilibrium steady states are a focal point of research in the study of open quantum systems. Previous variational algorithms for searching these steady states have suffered from resource-intensive implementations due to vectorization or purification of the system density matrix, requiring large qubit resources and long-range coupling. In this work, we present a novel variational quantum algorithm that efficiently searches for non-equilibrium steady states by simulating the operator-sum form of the Lindblad equation. By introducing the technique of random measurement, we are able to estimate the nonlinear cost function while reducing the required qubit resources by half compared to previous methods. Additionally, we prove the existence of the parameter shift rule in our variational algorithm, enabling efficient updates of circuit parameters using gradient-based classical algorithms. To demonstrate the performance of our algorithm, we conduct simulations for dissipative quantum transverse Ising and Heisenberg models, achieving highly accurate results. Our approach offers a promising solution for effectively addressing non-equilibrium steady state problems while overcoming computational limitations and implementation challenges.

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Numerical Security Analysis of Three-State Quantum Key Distribution Protocol with Realistic Devices

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication method that utilizes the principles of quantum mechanics to establish secret keys. The central task in the study of QKD is to prove security in the presence of an eavesdropper with unlimited computational power. In this work, we successfully solve a long-standing open question of the security analysis for the three-state QKD protocol with realistic devices, i,e, the weak coherent state source. We prove the existence of the squashing model for the measurement settings in the three-state protocol. This enables the reduction of measurement dimensionality, allowing for key rate computations using the numerical approach. We conduct numerical simulations to evaluate the key rate performance. The simulation results show that we achieve a communication distance of up to 200 km.

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QAOA with fewer qubits: a coupling framework to solve larger-scale Max-Cut problem

Maximum cut (Max-Cut) problem is one of the most important combinatorial optimization problems because of its various applications in real life, and recently Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) has been widely employed to solve it. However, as the size of the problem increases, the number of qubits required will become larger. With the aim of saving qubits, we propose a coupling framework for designing QAOA circuits to solve larger-scale Max-Cut problem. This framework relies on a classical algorithm that approximately solves a certain variant of Max-Cut, and we derive an approximation guarantee theoretically, assuming the approximation ratio of the classical algorithm and QAOA. Furthermore we design a heuristic approach that fits in our framework and perform sufficient numerical experiments, where we solve Max-Cut on various $24$-vertex Erdős-Rényi graphs. Our framework only consumes $18$ qubits and achieves $0.9950$ approximation ratio on average, which outperforms the previous methods showing $0.9778$ (quantum algorithm using the same number of qubits) and $0.9643$ (classical algorithm). The experimental results indicate our well-designed quantum-classical coupling framework gives satisfactory approximation ratio while reduces the qubit cost, which sheds light on more potential computing power of NISQ devices.

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Simple Deterministic Approximation for Submodular Multiple Knapsack Problem

Submodular maximization has been a central topic in theoretical computer science and combinatorial optimization over the last decades. Plenty of well-performed approximation algorithms have been designed for the problem over a variety of constraints. In this paper, we consider the submodular multiple knapsack problem (SMKP). In SMKP, the profits of each subset of elements are specified by a monotone submodular function. The goal is to find a feasible packing of elements over multiple bins (knapsacks) to maximize the profit. Recently, Fairstein et al.~[ESA20] proposed a nearly optimal $(1-e^{-1}-ε)$-approximation algorithm for SMKP. Their algorithm is obtained by combining configuration LP, a grouping technique for bin packing, and the continuous greedy algorithm for submodular maximization. As a result, the algorithm is somewhat sophisticated and inherently randomized. In this paper, we present an arguably simple deterministic combinatorial algorithm for SMKP, which achieves a $(1-e^{-1}-ε)$-approximation ratio. Our algorithm is based on very different ideas compared with Fairstein et al.~[ESA20].

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Bandit Multi-linear DR-Submodular Maximization and Its Applications on Adversarial Submodular Bandits

We investigate the online bandit learning of the monotone multi-linear DR-submodular functions, designing the algorithm $\mathtt{BanditMLSM}$ that attains $O(T^{2/3}\log T)$ of $(1-1/e)$-regret. Then we reduce submodular bandit with partition matroid constraint and bandit sequential monotone maximization to the online bandit learning of the monotone multi-linear DR-submodular functions, attaining $O(T^{2/3}\log T)$ of $(1-1/e)$-regret in both problems, which improve the existing results. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to give a sublinear regret algorithm for the submodular bandit with partition matroid constraint. A special case of this problem is studied by Streeter et al.(2009). They prove a $O(T^{4/5})$ $(1-1/e)$-regret upper bound. For the bandit sequential submodular maximization, the existing work proves an $O(T^{2/3})$ regret with a suboptimal $1/2$ approximation ratio (Niazadeh et al. 2021).

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Improved Deterministic Algorithms for Non-monotone Submodular Maximization

Submodular maximization is one of the central topics in combinatorial optimization. It has found numerous applications in the real world. In the past decades, a series of algorithms have been proposed for this problem. However, most of the state-of-the-art algorithms are randomized. There remain non-negligible gaps with respect to approximation ratios between deterministic and randomized algorithms in submodular maximization. In this paper, we propose deterministic algorithms with improved approximation ratios for non-monotone submodular maximization. Specifically, for the matroid constraint, we provide a deterministic $0.283-o(1)$ approximation algorithm, while the previous best deterministic algorithm only achieves a $1/4$ approximation ratio. For the knapsack constraint, we provide a deterministic $1/4$ approximation algorithm, while the previous best deterministic algorithm only achieves a $1/6$ approximation ratio. For the linear packing constraints with large widths, we provide a deterministic $1/6-ε$ approximation algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no deterministic approximation algorithm for the constraints.

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Optimal Synthesis of Multi-Controlled Qudit Gates

We propose a linear-size synthesis of the multi-controlled Toffoli gate on qudits with at most one borrowed ancilla. This one ancilla can even be saved when the qudit dimension is odd. Our synthesis leads to improvements in various quantum algorithms implemented on qudits. In particular, we obtain (i) a linear-size and one-clean-ancilla synthesis of multi-controlled qudit gates; (ii) an optimal-size and one-clean-ancilla synthesis of unitaries on qudits; (iii) a near-optimal-size and ancilla-free/one-borrowed-ancilla implementation of classical reversible functions as qudit gates.

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Asymptotically Optimal Circuit Depth for Quantum State Preparation and General Unitary Synthesis

The Quantum State Preparation problem aims to prepare an $n$-qubit quantum state $|ψ_v\rangle =\sum_{k=0}^{2^n-1}v_k|k\rangle$ from the initial state $|0\rangle^{\otimes n}$, for a given unit vector $v=(v_0,v_1,v_2,\ldots,v_{2^n-1})^T\in \mathbb{C}^{2^n}$ with $\|v\|_2 = 1$. The problem is of fundamental importance in quantum algorithm design, Hamiltonian simulation and quantum machine learning, yet its circuit depth and size complexity remain open when ancillary qubits are available. In this paper, we study efficient constructions of quantum circuits with $m$ ancillary qubits that can prepare $|ψ_v\rangle$ in depth $\tilde O\left(\frac{2^n}{m+n}+n\right)$and size $O(2^n)$, achieving the optimal value for both measures simultaneously. These results also imply a depth complexity of $Θ(4^n/(m+n))$ for quantum circuits implementing a general $n$-qubit unitary using $m = O(2^n/n)$ ancillary qubits. This resolves the depth complexity for circuits without ancillary qubits, and for circuits with exponentially many ancillary qubits, this gives a quadratic saving from $O(4^n)$ to $\tilde Θ(2^n)$. Our circuits are deterministic, prepare the state and carry out the unitary precisely, utilize the ancillary qubits tightly and the depths are optimal in a wide range of parameter regime. The results can be viewed as (optimal) time-space tradeoff bounds, which is not only theoretically interesting, but also practically relevant in the current trend that the number of qubits starts to take off, by showing a way to use a large number of qubits to compensate the short qubit lifetime.

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Optimization of CNOT circuits on limited connectivity architecture

A CNOT circuit is the key gadget for entangling qubits in quantum computing systems. However, the qubit connectivity of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices is constrained by their {limited connectivity architecture}. To improve the performance of CNOT circuits on NISQ devices, we investigate the optimization of the size/depth of CNOT circuits under the limited connectivity architecture. We present a method that can optimize the size of any $n$-qubit CNOT circuit $O\left(\frac{n^2}{\log δ}\right)$ on any connected graph with minimum degree $δ$, and prove this bound is optimal for the regular graph. For the near-term sparsely connected structure, we additionally present a method that can optimize the size of any $n$-qubit CNOT circuit to below $2n^2$. The numerical experiment shows that our method performs better than state-of-the-art results. Specifically, we present an example to illustrate the applicability of our algorithm. For the grid structure, which is commonly used in current quantum devices, we demonstrate that the depth of any $n$-qubit CNOT circuit can be optimized to be linear in $n$ with certain ancillary qubits (ancillas). Experimental results indicate that this method has significant improvements compared with all of the existing methods. We additionally test our algorithms on the five-qubit IBMQ devices, and the experiments show that the measurement results of the optimized circuit with our algorithm are more robust to noise compared with the IBM mapping method.

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Near-Term Quantum Computing Techniques: Variational Quantum Algorithms, Error Mitigation, Circuit Compilation, Benchmarking and Classical Simulation

Quantum computing is a game-changing technology for global academia, research centers and industries including computational science, mathematics, finance, pharmaceutical, materials science, chemistry and cryptography. Although it has seen a major boost in the last decade, we are still a long way from reaching the maturity of a full-fledged quantum computer. That said, we will be in the Noisy-Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) era for a long time, working on dozens or even thousands of qubits quantum computing systems. An outstanding challenge, then, is to come up with an application that can reliably carry out a nontrivial task of interest on the near-term quantum devices with non-negligible quantum noise. To address this challenge, several near-term quantum computing techniques, including variational quantum algorithms, error mitigation, quantum circuit compilation and benchmarking protocols, have been proposed to characterize and mitigate errors, and to implement algorithms with a certain resistance to noise, so as to enhance the capabilities of near-term quantum devices and explore the boundaries of their ability to realize useful applications. Besides, the development of near-term quantum devices is inseparable from the efficient classical simulation, which plays a vital role in quantum algorithm design and verification, error-tolerant verification and other applications. This review will provide a thorough introduction of these near-term quantum computing techniques, report on their progress, and finally discuss the future prospect of these techniques, which we hope will motivate researchers to undertake additional studies in this field.

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