Quantum computing is evolving so quickly that forces us to revisit, rewrite, and update the basis of the theory. Basic Quantum Algorithms revisits the first quantum algorithms. It started in 1995 with Deutsch trying to evaluate a function at two domain points simultaneously. Then, Deutsch and Jozsa created in 1992 a quantum algorithm that determines whether a Boolean function is constant or balanced. In the next year, Bernstein and Vazirani realized that the same algorithm can be used to find a specific Boolean function in the set of linear Boolean functions. In 1994, Simon presented a new quantum algorithm that determines whether a function is one-to-one or two-to-one exponentially faster than any classical algorithm for the same problem. In the same year, Shor created two new quantum algorithms for factoring integers and calculating discrete logarithms, threatening the cryptography methods widely used nowadays. In 1995, Kitaev described an alternative version for Shor's algorithms that proved useful in many other applications. In the following year, Grover created a quantum search algorithm quadratically faster than its classical counterpart. In this work, all those remarkable algorithms are described in detail with a focus on the circuit model.
The approximate uniform sampling of graph realizations with a given degree sequence is an everyday task in several social science, computer science, engineering etc. projects. One approach is using Markov chains. The best available current result about the well-studied switch Markov chain is that it is rapidly mixing on P-stable degree sequences (see DOI:10.1016/j.ejc.2021.103421). The switch Markov chain does not change any degree sequence. However, there are cases where degree intervals are specified rather than a single degree sequence. (A natural scenario where this problem arises is in hypothesis testing on social networks that are only partially observed.) Rechner, Strowick, and M\"uller-Hannemann introduced in 2018 the notion of degree interval Markov chain which uses three (separately well-studied) local operations (switch, hinge-flip and toggle), and employing on degree sequence realizations where any two sequences under scrutiny have very small coordinate-wise distance. Recently Amanatidis and Kleer published a beautiful paper (arXiv:2110.09068), showing that the degree interval Markov chain is rapidly mixing if the sequences are coming from a system of very thin intervals which are centered not far from a regular degree sequence. In this paper we extend substantially their result, showing that the degree interval Markov chain is rapidly mixing if the intervals are centred at P-stable degree sequences.
Quantum algorithms often apply classical operations, such as arithmetic or predicate checks, over a quantum superposition of classical data; these so-called oracles are often the largest components of a quantum program. To ease the construction of efficient, correct oracle functions, this paper presents VQO, a high-assurance framework implemented with the Coq proof assistant. The core of VQO is OQASM, the oracle quantum assembly language. OQASM operations move qubits between two different bases via the quantum Fourier transform, thus admitting important optimizations, but without inducing entanglement and the exponential blowup that comes with it. OQASM's design enabled us to prove correct VQO's compilers -- from a simple imperative language called OQIMP to OQASM, and from OQASM to SQIR, a general-purpose quantum assembly language -- and allowed us to efficiently test properties of OQASM programs using the QuickChick property-based testing framework. We have used VQO to implement a variety of arithmetic and geometric operators that are building blocks for important oracles, including those used in Shor's and Grover's algorithms. We found that VQO's QFT-based arithmetic oracles require fewer qubits, sometimes substantially fewer, than those constructed using "classical" gates; VQO's versions of the latter were nevertheless on par with or better than (in terms of both qubit and gate counts) oracles produced by Quipper, a state-of-the-art but unverified quantum programming platform.
Quantum communications is a promising technology that will play a fundamental role in the design of future networks. In fact, significant efforts are being dedicated by both the quantum physics and the classical communications communities on developing new architectures, solutions, and practical implementations of quantum communication networks (QCNs). Although these efforts led to various advances in today's technologies, there still exists a non-trivial gap between the research efforts of the two communities on designing and optimizing the QCN performance. For instance, most prior works by the classical communications community ignore important quantum physics-based constraints when designing QCNs. For example, many works on entanglement distribution do not account for the decoherence of qubits inside quantum memories and, thus, their designs become impractical since they assume an infinite quantum states' lifetime. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework, dubbed physics-informed QCNs, for designing and analyzing the performance of QCNs, by relying on the quantum physics principles that underly the different QCN components. The need of the proposed approach is then assessed and its fundamental role in designing practical QCNs is analyzed across various open research areas. Moreover, we identify novel physics-informed performance metrics and controls that enable QCNs to leverage the state-of-the-art advancements in quantum technologies to enhance their performance. Finally, we analyze multiple pressing challenges and open research directions in QCNs that must be treated using a physics-informed approach to lead practically viable results. Ultimately, this work attempts to bridge the gap between the classical communications and the quantum physics communities in the area of QCNs to foster the development of future communication networks (6G and beyond, and the quantum Internet).
Generating a test suite for a quantum program such that it has the maximum number of failing tests is an optimization problem. For such optimization, search-based testing has shown promising results in the context of classical programs. To this end, we present a test generation tool for quantum programs based on a genetic algorithm, called QuSBT (Search-based Testing of Quantum Programs). QuSBT automates the testing of quantum programs, with the aim of finding a test suite having the maximum number of failing test cases. QuSBT utilizes IBM's Qiskit as the simulation framework for quantum programs. We present the tool architecture in addition to the implemented methodology (i.e., the encoding of the search individual, the definition of the fitness function expressing the search problem, and the test assessment w.r.t. two types of failures). Finally, we report results of the experiments in which we tested a set of faulty quantum programs with QuSBT to assess its effectiveness. Repository (code and experimental results): //github.com/Simula-COMPLEX/qusbt-tool Video: //youtu.be/3apRCtluAn4
Molecular mechanics (MM) potentials have long been a workhorse of computational chemistry. Leveraging accuracy and speed, these functional forms find use in a wide variety of applications in biomolecular modeling and drug discovery, from rapid virtual screening to detailed free energy calculations. Traditionally, MM potentials have relied on human-curated, inflexible, and poorly extensible discrete chemical perception rules or applying parameters to small molecules or biopolymers, making it difficult to optimize both types and parameters to fit quantum chemical or physical property data. Here, we propose an alternative approach that uses graph neural networks to perceive chemical environments, producing continuous atom embeddings from which valence and nonbonded parameters can be predicted using invariance-preserving layers. Since all stages are built from smooth neural functions, the entire process is modular and end-to-end differentiable with respect to model parameters, allowing new force fields to be easily constructed, extended, and applied to arbitrary molecules. We show that this approach is not only sufficiently expressive to reproduce legacy atom types, but that it can learn to accurately reproduce and extend existing molecular mechanics force fields. Trained with arbitrary loss functions, it can construct entirely new force fields self-consistently applicable to both biopolymers and small molecules directly from quantum chemical calculations, with superior fidelity than traditional atom or parameter typing schemes. When trained on the same quantum chemical small molecule dataset used to parameterize the openff-1.2.0 small molecule force field augmented with a peptide dataset, the resulting espaloma model shows superior accuracy vis-\`a-vis experiments in computing relative alchemical free energy calculations for a popular benchmark set.
Works on quantum computing and cryptanalysis has increased significantly in the past few years. Various constructions of quantum arithmetic circuits, as one of the essential components in the field, has also been proposed. However, there has only been a few studies on finite field inversion despite its essential use in realizing quantum algorithms, such as in Shor's algorithm for Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarith Problem (ECDLP). In this study, we propose to reduce the depth of the existing quantum Fermat's Little Theorem (FLT)-based inversion circuit for binary finite field. In particular, we propose follow a complete waterfall approach to translate the Itoh-Tsujii's variant of FLT to the corresponding quantum circuit and remove the inverse squaring operations employed in the previous work by Banegas et al., lowering the number of CNOT gates (CNOT count), which contributes to reduced overall depth and gate count. Furthermore, compare the cost by firstly constructing our method and previous work's in Qiskit quantum computer simulator and perform the resource analysis. Our approach can serve as an alternative for a time-efficient implementation.
While the theoretical analysis of evolutionary algorithms (EAs) has made significant progress for pseudo-Boolean optimization problems in the last 25 years, only sporadic theoretical results exist on how EAs solve permutation-based problems. To overcome the lack of permutation-based benchmark problems, we propose a general way to transfer the classic pseudo-Boolean benchmarks into benchmarks defined on sets of permutations. We then conduct a rigorous runtime analysis of the permutation-based $(1+1)$ EA proposed by Scharnow, Tinnefeld, and Wegener (2004) on the analogues of the \textsc{LeadingOnes} and \textsc{Jump} benchmarks. The latter shows that, different from bit-strings, it is not only the Hamming distance that determines how difficult it is to mutate a permutation $\sigma$ into another one $\tau$, but also the precise cycle structure of $\sigma \tau^{-1}$. For this reason, we also regard the more symmetric scramble mutation operator. We observe that it not only leads to simpler proofs, but also reduces the runtime on jump functions with odd jump size by a factor of $\Theta(n)$. Finally, we show that a heavy-tailed version of the scramble operator, as in the bit-string case, leads to a speed-up of order $m^{\Theta(m)}$ on jump functions with jump size~$m$.%
Recent decades, the emergence of numerous novel algorithms makes it a gimmick to propose an intelligent optimization system based on metaphor, and hinders researchers from exploring the essence of search behavior in algorithms. However, it is difficult to directly discuss the search behavior of an intelligent optimization algorithm, since there are so many kinds of intelligent schemes. To address this problem, an intelligent optimization system is regarded as a simulated physical optimization system in this paper. The dynamic search behavior of such a simplified physical optimization system are investigated with quantum theory. To achieve this goal, the Schroedinger equation is employed as the dynamics equation of the optimization algorithm, which is used to describe dynamic search behaviours in the evolution process with quantum theory. Moreover, to explore the basic behaviour of the optimization system, the optimization problem is assumed to be decomposed and approximated. Correspondingly, the basic search behaviour is derived, which constitutes the basic iterative process of a simple optimization system. The basic iterative process is compared with some classical bare-bones schemes to verify the similarity of search behavior under different metaphors. The search strategies of these bare bones algorithms are analyzed through experiments.
After spending 9 years in Quantum Computing and given the impending timeline of developing good quality quantum processing units, it is the moment to rethink the approach to advance quantum computing research. Rather than waiting for quantum hardware technologies to mature, we need to start assessing in tandem the impact of the occurrence of quantum computing in various scientific fields. However, for this purpose, we need to use a complementary but quite different approach than proposed by the NISQ vision, which is heavily focused on and burdened by the engineering challenges. That is why we propose and advocate the PISQ-approach: Perfect Intermediate-Scale Quantum computing based on the already known concept of perfect qubits. This will allow researchers to focus much more on the development of new applications by defining the algorithms in terms of perfect qubits and evaluating them on quantum computing simulators that are executed on supercomputers. It is not a long-term solution but it will allow universities to currently develop research on quantum logic and algorithms and companies can already start developing their internal know-how on quantum solutions.
Since deep neural networks were developed, they have made huge contributions to everyday lives. Machine learning provides more rational advice than humans are capable of in almost every aspect of daily life. However, despite this achievement, the design and training of neural networks are still challenging and unpredictable procedures. To lower the technical thresholds for common users, automated hyper-parameter optimization (HPO) has become a popular topic in both academic and industrial areas. This paper provides a review of the most essential topics on HPO. The first section introduces the key hyper-parameters related to model training and structure, and discusses their importance and methods to define the value range. Then, the research focuses on major optimization algorithms and their applicability, covering their efficiency and accuracy especially for deep learning networks. This study next reviews major services and toolkits for HPO, comparing their support for state-of-the-art searching algorithms, feasibility with major deep learning frameworks, and extensibility for new modules designed by users. The paper concludes with problems that exist when HPO is applied to deep learning, a comparison between optimization algorithms, and prominent approaches for model evaluation with limited computational resources.