A panoply of quantum algorithms

Abstract

This paper's aim is to explore improvements to, and applications of, a fundamental quantum algorithm invented by Grover[1]. Grover's algorithm is a basic tool that can be applied to a large number of problems in computer science, creating quantum algorithms that are polynomially faster than fastest known and fastest possible classical algorithms that solve the same problems. Our goal in this paper is to make these techniques readily accessible to those without a strong background in quantum physics: we achieve this by providing a set of tools, each of which makes use of Grover's algorithm or similar techniques, which can be used as subroutines in many quantum algorithms. The tools we provide are carefully constructed: they are easy to use, and in many cases they are asymptotically faster than the best tools previously available. The tools we build on include algorithms by Boyer, Brassard, Hoyer and Tapp[2], Buhrman, Cleve, de Witt and Zalka[3] and Durr and Hoyer[4]. After creating our tools, we create several new quantum algorithms, each of which is faster than the fastest known deterministic classical algorithm that accomplishes the same aim, and some of which are faster than the fastest possible deterministic classical algorithm. These algorithms solve problems from the fields of graph theory and computational geometry, and some employ dynamic programming techniques. We discuss a breadth-first search that is faster than Θ(edges) (the classical limit) in a dense graph, maximum-points-on-a-line in O(N3/2 lgN) (faster than the fastest classical algorithm known), as well as several other algorithms that are similarly illustrative of solutions in some class of problem. Through these new algorithms we illustrate the use of our tools, working to encourage their use and the study of quantum algorithms in general.