Quantum Search for Zeros of Polynomials.pdfVIP

Quantum Search for Zeros of Polynomials Stefan Weigert HuMP - Hull Mathematical Physics Department of Mathematics, University of Hull, UK-Hull s.weigert@hull.ac.uk 3 May 2003 0 0 2 Abstract y a A quantum mechanical search procedure to determine the real zeros of a poly- M nomial is introduced. It is based on the construction of a spin observable whose eigenvalues coincide with the zeros of the polynomial. Subsequent quantum me- 9 chanical measurements of the observable output directly the numerical values of 2 the zeros. Performing the measurements is the only computational resource in- 1 volved. v 7 PACS: 03.67.-a, 03.65Sq 7 1 5 Introduction 0 3 0 Quantum mechanical measurements are a computational resource. Various quantum / algorithms use projective measurements at some stage or other to determine the period h p of a function e.g. [1]. In [2], projective measurements have been assigned a crucial role - t for a particular scheme of universal quantum computation which requires measurements n a on up to four qubits. Related schemes have been formulated based on measuring on u triples and pairs [3], and finally on pairs of qubits only [4]. Measurements are also an q : essential part of Grover’s search algorithm in order to actually read the result of the v i computation [5, 6]. X A conceptually different strategy has been applied to propose a special-purpose ma- r a chine which is cap