2010/05/10 by Ben W. Reichardt · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #quant-ph
published as Proc. 22nd ACM-SIAM Symp. on Discrete Algorithms (SODA), 2011, pages 560-569 · 13 pages
arxiv created 2010/05/10 · arxiv updated 2011/07/26
We show that any boolean function can be evaluated optimally by a quantum query algorithm that alternates a certain fixed, input-independent reflection with a second reflection that coherently queries the input string. Originally introduced for solving the unstructured search problem, this two-reflections structure is therefore a universal feature of quantum algorithms. Our proof goes via the general adversary bound, a semi-definite program (SDP) that lower-bounds the quantum query complexity of a function. By a quantum algorithm for evaluating span programs, this lower bound is known to be tight up to a sub-logarithmic factor. The extra factor comes from converting a continuous-time query algorithm into a discrete-query algorithm. We give a direct and simplified quantum algorithm based on the dual SDP, with a bounded-error query complexity that matches the general adversary bound. Therefore, the general adversary lower bound is tight; it is in fact an SDP for quantum query complexity. This implies that the quantum query complexity of the composition f(g,...,g) of two boolean functions f and g matches the product of the query complexities of f and g, without a logarithmic factor for error reduction. It further shows that span programs are equivalent to quantum query algorithms.