A fundamental computational problem is to find a shortest non-zero vector in Euclidean lattices, a problem known as the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP). This problem is believed to be hard even on quantum computers and thus plays a pivotal role in post-quantum cryptography. In this work we explore how (efficiently) Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices may be used to solve SVP. Specifically, we map the problem to that of finding the ground state of a suitable Hamiltonian. In particular, (i) we establish new bounds for lattice enumeration, this allows us to obtain new bounds (resp.~estimates) for the number of qubits required per dimension for any lattices (resp.~random q-ary lattices) to solve SVP; (ii) we exclude the zero vector from the optimization space by proposing (a) a different classical optimisation loop or alternatively (b) a new mapping to the Hamiltonian. These improvements allow us to solve SVP in dimension up to 28 in a quantum emulation, significantly more than what was previously achieved, even for special cases. Finally, we extrapolate the size of NISQ devices that is required to be able to solve instances of lattices that are hard even for the best classical algorithms and find that with approximately $10^3$ noisy qubits such instances can be tackled.
Several quantum algorithms for linear algebra problems, and in particular quantum machine learning problems, have been "dequantized" in the past few years. These dequantization results typically hold when classical algorithms can access the data via length-squared sampling. In this work we investigate how robust these dequantization results are. We introduce the notion of approximate length-squared sampling, where classical algorithms are only able to sample from a distribution close to the ideal distribution in total variation distance. While quantum algorithms are natively robust against small perturbations, current techniques in dequantization are not. Our main technical contribution is showing how many techniques from randomized linear algebra can be adapted to work under this weaker assumption as well. We then use these techniques to show that the recent low-rank dequantization framework by Chia, Gily\'en, Li, Lin, Tang and Wang (JACM 2022) and the dequantization framework for sparse matrices by Gharibian and Le Gall (STOC 2022), which are both based on the Quantum Singular Value Transformation, can be generalized to the case of approximate length-squared sampling access to the input. We also apply these results to obtain a robust dequantization of many quantum machine learning algorithms, including quantum algorithms for recommendation systems, supervised clustering and low-rank matrix inversion.
Near-term quantum computers are expected to work in an environment where each operation is noisy, with no error correction. Therefore, quantum-circuit optimizers are applied to minimize the number of noisy operations. Today, physicists are constantly experimenting with novel devices and architectures. For every new physical substrate and for every modification of a quantum computer, we need to modify or rewrite major pieces of the optimizer to run successful experiments. In this paper, we present QUESO, an efficient approach for automatically synthesizing a quantum-circuit optimizer for a given quantum device. For instance, in 1.2 minutes, QUESO can synthesize an optimizer with high-probability correctness guarantees for IBM computers that significantly outperforms leading compilers, such as IBM's Qiskit and TKET, on the majority (85%) of the circuits in a diverse benchmark suite. A number of theoretical and algorithmic insights underlie QUESO: (1) An algebraic approach for representing rewrite rules and their semantics. This facilitates reasoning about complex symbolic rewrite rules that are beyond the scope of existing techniques. (2) A fast approach for probabilistically verifying equivalence of quantum circuits by reducing the problem to a special form of polynomial identity testing. (3) A novel probabilistic data structure, called a polynomial identity filter (PIF), for efficiently synthesizing rewrite rules. (4) A beam-search-based algorithm that efficiently applies the synthesized symbolic rewrite rules to optimize quantum circuits.
In this paper, we propose an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM)-based optimization algorithm to achieve better undersampling rate for multiple measurement vector (MMV) problem. The core is to introduce the $\ell_{2,0}$-norm sparsity constraint to describe the joint-sparsity of the MMV problem, which is different from the widely used $\ell_{2,1}$-norm constraint in the existing research. In order to illustrate the better performance of $\ell_{2,0}$-norm, first this paper proves the equivalence of the sparsity of the row support set of a matrix and its $\ell_{2,0}$-norm. Afterward, the MMV problem based on $\ell_{2,0}$-norm is proposed. Moreover, building on the Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz property, this paper establishes that the sequence generated by ADMM globally converges to the optimal point of the MMV problem. Finally, the performance of our algorithm and comparison with other algorithms under different conditions is studied by simulated examples.
Numerical vector aggregation plays a crucial role in privacy-sensitive applications, such as distributed gradient estimation in federated learning and statistical analysis of key-value data. In the context of local differential privacy, this study provides a tight minimax error bound of $O(\frac{ds}{n\epsilon^2})$, where $d$ represents the dimension of the numerical vector and $s$ denotes the number of non-zero entries. By converting the conditional/unconditional numerical mean estimation problem into a frequency estimation problem, we develop an optimal and efficient mechanism called Collision. In contrast, existing methods exhibit sub-optimal error rates of $O(\frac{d^2}{n\epsilon^2})$ or $O(\frac{ds^2}{n\epsilon^2})$. Specifically, for unconditional mean estimation, we leverage the negative correlation between two frequencies in each dimension and propose the CoCo mechanism, which further reduces estimation errors for mean values compared to Collision. Moreover, to surpass the error barrier in local privacy, we examine privacy amplification in the shuffle model for the proposed mechanisms and derive precisely tight amplification bounds. Our experiments validate and compare our mechanisms with existing approaches, demonstrating significant error reductions for frequency estimation and mean estimation on numerical vectors.
Solving the ground state and the ground-state properties of quantum many-body systems is generically a hard task for classical algorithms. For a family of Hamiltonians defined on an $m$-dimensional space of physical parameters, the ground state and its properties at an arbitrary parameter configuration can be predicted via a machine learning protocol up to a prescribed prediction error $\varepsilon$, provided that a sample set (of size $N$) of the states can be efficiently prepared and measured. In a recent work [Huang et al., Science 377, eabk3333 (2022)], a rigorous guarantee for such an generalization was proved. Unfortunately, an exponential scaling, $N = m^{ {\cal{O}} \left(\frac{1}{\varepsilon} \right) }$, was found to be universal for generic gapped Hamiltonians. This result applies to the situation where the dimension of the parameter space is large while the scaling with the accuracy is not an urgent factor, not entering the realm of more precise learning and prediction. In this work, we consider an alternative scenario, where $m$ is a finite, not necessarily large constant while the scaling with the prediction error becomes the central concern. By exploiting physical constraints and positive good kernels for predicting the density matrix, we rigorously obtain an exponentially improved sample complexity, $N = \mathrm{poly} \left(\varepsilon^{-1}, n, \log \frac{1}{\delta}\right)$, where $\mathrm{poly}$ denotes a polynomial function; $n$ is the number of qubits in the system, and ($1-\delta$) is the probability of success. Moreover, if restricted to learning ground-state properties with strong locality assumptions, the number of samples can be further reduced to $N = \mathrm{poly} \left(\varepsilon^{-1}, \log \frac{n}{\delta}\right)$. This provably rigorous result represents a significant improvement and an indispensable extension of the existing work.
Implementation of a twin-field quantum key distribution network faces limitations, including the low tolerance of interference errors for phase-matching type protocols and the strict constraint regarding intensity and probability for sending-or-not-sending type protocols. Here, we propose a two-photon twin-field quantum key distribution protocol and achieve twin-field-type two-photon interference through post-matching phase-correlated single-photon interference events. We exploit the non-interference mode as the code mode to highly tolerate interference errors, and the two-photon interference naturally removes the intensity and probability constraint. Therefore, our protocol can transcend the abovementioned limitations while breaking the secret key capacity of repeaterless quantum key distribution. Simulations show that for a four-user networks, under which each node with fixed system parameters can dynamically switch different attenuation links, the key rates of our protocol for all six links can either exceed or approach the secret key capacity. However, the key rates of all links are lower than the key capacity when using phase-matching type protocols. Additionally, four of the links could not extract the key when using sending-or-not-sending type protocols. We anticipate that our protocol can facilitate the development of practical and efficient quantum networks.
Specifications of complex, large scale, computer software and hardware systems can be radically simplified by using simple maps from input sequences to output values. These "state machine maps" provide an alternative representation of classical Moore type state machines. Composition of state machine maps corresponds to state machine products and can be used to specify essentially any type of interconnection as well as parallel and distributed computation. State machine maps can also specify abstract properties of systems and are significantly more concise and scalable than traditional representations of automata. Examples included here include specifications of producer/consumer software, network distributed consensus, real-time digital circuits, and operating system scheduling. The motivation for this work comes from experience designing and developing operating systems and real-time software where weak methods for understanding and exploring designs is a well known handicap. The methods introduced here are based on ordinary discrete mathematics, primitive recursive functions and deterministic state machines and are intended, initially, to aid the intuition and understanding of the system developers. Staying strictly within the boundaries of classical deterministic state machines anchors the methods to the algebraic structures of automata and semigroups, obviates any need for axiomatic deduction systems, "formal methods", or extensions to the model, and makes the specifications more faithful to engineering practice. While state machine maps are obvious representations of state machines, the techniques introduced here for defining and composing them are novel. To illustrate applications, the paper includes a fairly detailed specification and verification of the well-known "Paxos" distributed consensus algorithm plus a number of simpler examples including a digital PID controller.
The $n$-vehicle exploration problem (NVEP) is a combinatorial optimization problem, which tries to find an optimal permutation of a fleet to maximize the length traveled by the last vehicle. NVEP has a fractional form of objective function, and its computational complexity of general case remains open. We show that Hamiltonian Path $\leq_P$ NVEP, and prove that NVEP is NP-complete.
Extracting classical information from quantum systems is an essential step of many quantum algorithms. However, this information could be corrupted as the systems are prone to quantum noises, and its distortion under quantum dynamics has not been adequately investigated. In this work, we introduce a systematic framework to study how well we can retrieve information from noisy quantum states. Given a noisy quantum channel, we fully characterize the range of recoverable classical information. This condition allows a natural measure quantifying the information recoverability of a channel. Moreover, we resolve the minimum information retrieving cost, which, along with the corresponding optimal protocol, is efficiently computable by semidefinite programming. As applications, we establish the limits on the information retrieving cost for practical quantum noises and employ the corresponding protocols to mitigate errors in ground state energy estimation. Our work gives the first full characterization of information recoverability of noisy quantum states from the recoverable range to the recovering cost, revealing the ultimate limit of probabilistic error cancellation.
Unsupervised domain adaptation has recently emerged as an effective paradigm for generalizing deep neural networks to new target domains. However, there is still enormous potential to be tapped to reach the fully supervised performance. In this paper, we present a novel active learning strategy to assist knowledge transfer in the target domain, dubbed active domain adaptation. We start from an observation that energy-based models exhibit free energy biases when training (source) and test (target) data come from different distributions. Inspired by this inherent mechanism, we empirically reveal that a simple yet efficient energy-based sampling strategy sheds light on selecting the most valuable target samples than existing approaches requiring particular architectures or computation of the distances. Our algorithm, Energy-based Active Domain Adaptation (EADA), queries groups of targe data that incorporate both domain characteristic and instance uncertainty into every selection round. Meanwhile, by aligning the free energy of target data compact around the source domain via a regularization term, domain gap can be implicitly diminished. Through extensive experiments, we show that EADA surpasses state-of-the-art methods on well-known challenging benchmarks with substantial improvements, making it a useful option in the open world. Code is available at //github.com/BIT-DA/EADA.