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Algorithms · Quantum query algorithm

Group order and membership for black-box groups

Given a finite group G presented only through an oracle that takes an ordered pair of element labels and returns the label of their product, compute the order of G from the labels of a set of generators, and decide whether a given bitstring is the label of a group element — in the constructive form of the membership question, exhibiting that element as a product of the generators.

Attested & literatureUpdated

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  • Record typeLiterature reference
  • Speedup class (secondary source)Superpolynomial
  • Primary source on the speedupNot checked against the primary source yet
  • Reported costpolylog(|G|) queries to compute the order and to decide membership when G is solvable, and likewise when G is Abelian, against a classical query cost that the Zoo says cannot be brought down to polylog(|G|) even for Abelian G. Watrous states the solvable case as a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for computing orders of solvable groups, and the abstract names no query count and no parameter that its polynomial time is measured in.
  • Papers1

A part this method uses, worked through

This page says quantum algorithms for discrete log — here is a concrete, runnable instance of it.

Order-finding for 7 mod 15

3 counting qubits, 4 work qubits, finding the order of 7 modulo 15 (the order is 4: 7⁴ mod 15 = 1).

q0q1q2q3q4q5q6XHadamard layer(3)Controlled x7 mod 15Controlled x4 mod 15QFT inverse(3)

Where it ends up

  • 00010006%
  • 00010106%
  • 00011006%
  • 00011106%
  • 12 more outcomes75%

The counting register reads 000, 010, 100 or 110, each equally likely, corresponding to the four powers k = 0, 1, 2, 3 of the order r = 4; the work register ends entangled with the counting outcome, holding one of 1, 7, 4 or 13. Repeating this and applying the continued-fractions step of the full algorithm to a nonzero outcome recovers the order r = 4 exactly.

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Record type
Literature reference
Speedup class (secondary source)
Superpolynomial
Primary source on the speedup
Not checked against the primary source yet
Reported cost
polylog(|G|) queries to compute the order and to decide membership when G is solvable, and likewise when G is Abelian, against a classical query cost that the Zoo says cannot be brought down to polylog(|G|) even for Abelian G. Watrous states the solvable case as a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for computing orders of solvable groups, and the abstract names no query count and no parameter that its polynomial time is measured in.
Speedup class
Superpolynomial (not yet checked against the record's own primary paper)
Complexity basis
Quantum Algorithm Zoo entry "Group Order and Membership", quoted with the entry reference numerals omitted and the spacing inside | G | left as the Zoo prints it: "Classically, these problems cannot be solved using polylog(| G |) queries even if G is Abelian. For Abelian groups, quantum computers can solve these problems using polylog(| G |) queries by reduction to the Abelian hidden subgroup problem, as shown by Mosca", and "quantum computers can solve these problems using polylog(| G |) queries for any solvable group"; abstract of arXiv:quant-ph/0011023: "In this paper we give a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for computing orders of solvable groups" together with "Our algorithm works in the setting of black-box groups, wherein none of these problems can be computed classically in polynomial time." The polylog(|G|) figures are the Zoo entry's; the abstract states neither a query count nor the quantity its polynomial is in.
Circuit
Not supplied

References

  • Quantum algorithms for solvable groups

    John Watrous · 2000

    Primary source: it gives the polynomial-time quantum algorithm for computing orders of solvable groups that this record rests on, states that membership testing, equality of subgroups and normality of a subgroup reduce to that order computation, works throughout in the black-box group setting where the abstract says none of these problems is classically polynomial-time, and reports the byproduct that the algorithm can produce a pure quantum state uniform over the elements of any chosen subgroup. Consult it for the black-box group model it assumes and for the quantity its polynomial time is measured in, which the abstract does not name.

Attested & literature
  • Peer-reviewed paper
Method
Curation only. The problem statement was recorded from the literature; the speedup class is not yet checked against the record's own primary paper; the primary reference's title, authors and submission year were read from its arXiv abs page; the complexity claim was taken from a clause of that paper's abstract (Quantum Algorithm Zoo entry "Group Order and Membership", quoted with the entry reference numerals omitted and the spacing inside | G | left as the Zoo prints it: "Classically, these problems cannot be solved using polylog(| G |) queries even if G is Abelian. For Abelian groups, quantum computers can solve these problems using polylog(| G |) queries by reduction to the Abelian hidden subgroup problem, as shown by Mosca", and "quantum computers can solve these problems using polylog(| G |) queries for any solvable group"; abstract of arXiv:quant-ph/0011023: "In this paper we give a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for computing orders of solvable groups" together with "Our algorithm works in the setting of black-box groups, wherein none of these problems can be computed classically in polynomial time." The polylog(|G|) figures are the Zoo entry's; the abstract states neither a query count nor the quantity its polynomial is in.). No circuit was constructed, simulated or run.
Result
Pass · the record's problem, speedup class and primary reference agree with the two sources named above.
Caveat
This is a literature record: no group was represented, no group oracle was implemented, and no circuit was built, compiled, simulated or run; no order was computed and no membership question was decided here. The polylog(|G|) figures count queries to the group oracle in the black-box model, so they bound neither gate count nor circuit depth nor the cost of realizing the group oracle for a concrete G, and polylog leaves both the power of the logarithm and the constant in front of it unstated. The two sources measure different things — the Zoo counts queries, while the Watrous abstract claims polynomial time without naming the parameter — and this record does not equate them. The reach is Abelian groups, on Mosca's result as reported by the Zoo, and solvable groups, on Watrous; nothing here covers a general finite group, and Mosca's paper is cited through the Zoo rather than read for this record. The abstract names membership testing but not the constructive version, and the Zoo clause quoted above states its polylog(|G|) figure for these problems without listing them inside the quoted fragment, so no clause quoted here establishes on its own the cost of decomposing a given element into a product of generators. The classical side is the Zoo's and the abstract's own statement about the black-box setting, not a lower bound re-derived here. The Zoo's separate remark that for groups given as matrices over a finite field rather than oracularly the order finding and constructive membership problems can be solved in polynomial time using the quantum algorithms for discrete log and factoring concerns a different input model and rests on papers outside this record, as does the group isomorphism entry the Zoo points to next.
Quantum algorithms for solvable groups ↗
Kind
curated reference
Reviewed by
Leona Quantum curation pass
License
Citation metadata only; source publication terms apply
black-box groupgroup ordermembership testingsolvable groupshidden subgroup

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