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Additive approximation of Turaev-Viro 3-manifold invariants

Given a compact, orientable three-manifold presented by a Heegaard splitting, compute a certain additive approximation to its Turaev-Viro invariant, the scalar topological invariant that takes the same value on homeomorphic manifolds.

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 costNot stated by the sources read
  • Papers1

This record is not a concrete circuit.

References

  • Approximating Turaev-Viro 3-manifold invariants is universal for quantum computation

    Gorjan Alagic, Stephen P. Jordan, Robert Koenig, Ben W. Reichardt · 2010

    Primary source: it gives the quantum algorithm that additively approximates Turaev-Viro invariants of a manifold presented by a Heegaard splitting, motivates the construction by the relationship between topological quantum computers and (2+1)-D topological quantum field theories, and establishes that approximating certain such invariants is a universal problem for quantum computation, which it presents as a novel relation between distinguishing non-homeomorphic 3-manifolds and the power of a general quantum computer. Consult it for the accuracy the approximation achieves and for the classical preprocessing the universality claim assumes, since the abstract quantifies neither and states no running time.

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 (Two sources were read and neither states a cost for this algorithm. The abstract of arXiv:1003.0923 quotes no running time, query count, gate count or qubit count: it says only "We give a quantum algorithm for additively approximating Turaev-Viro invariants of a manifold presented by a Heegaard splitting" and that "the same algorithm, after efficient classical preprocessing, can solve any problem efficiently decidable by a quantum computer". The Quantum Algorithm Zoo entry "Three-manifold Invariants" is likewise unquantified for this result: "a quantum computer can efficiently find a certain additive approximation to its Turaev-Viro invariant, and this approximation is BQP-complete [ 129 ]." The only clause in that entry naming a running time belongs to a different algorithm in a different reference — "Earlier, in [ 114 ], a polynomial-time quantum algorithm was given to additively approximate the Witten-Reshitikhin-Turaev (WRT) invariant of a manifold given by a surgery presentation" — and that paper is not part of this record, so its bound is not carried over here. BQP-completeness is a statement of hardness rather than a cost, so the field is left empty rather than filled from elsewhere.). 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 manifold was presented to any program, no circuit was built, compiled, simulated or run, and no invariant was computed here. Neither source states a running time, query count, gate count or qubit count for this algorithm, so nothing here bounds the cost for a manifold of any given size or genus; the word efficiently carries the claim in the Zoo entry and is left unquantified there. The approximation is additive and neither source quantifies its window, so this record does not establish that the output is usable as a multiplicative estimate of the invariant, and the abstract's claim is that the accuracy is nontrivial rather than that it meets any stated tolerance. BQP-completeness and universality are statements about which problems a quantum computer can solve, not evidence about any device, and they do not by themselves establish that a particular pair of non-homeomorphic 3-manifolds can be told apart. The result is stated for manifolds presented by a Heegaard splitting, and that presentation is part of the statement: the earlier WRT algorithm the Zoo cites takes a surgery presentation, the Zoo records the BQP-completeness of its approximation as unknown, and that algorithm, together with the suggested link between quantum computation and three-manifold invariants that the Zoo cites separately, rests on papers outside this record. The relation that squaring the WRT invariant yields the Turaev-Viro invariant is recorded as the Zoo states it and is not re-derived here.
Approximating Turaev-Viro 3-manifold invariants is universal for quantum computation ↗
Kind
curated reference
Reviewed by
Leona Quantum curation pass
License
Citation metadata only; source publication terms apply
turaev-viro3-manifoldtopological invariantsheegaard splittingbqp-complete

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