Paper 4, Section I, 10D
Let denote the set of all -bit strings. Suppose we are given a 2-qubit quantum gate which is promised to be of the form
but the 2-bit string is unknown to us. We wish to determine with the least number of queries to . Define , where is the identity operator and .
(a) Is unitary? Justify your answer.
(b) Compute the action of on , and the action of on , in each case expressing your answer in terms of and . Hence or otherwise show that may be determined with certainty using only one application of the gate , together with any other gates that are independent of .
(c) Let be the function having value 0 for all and having value 1 for . It is known that a single use of can be implemented with a single query to a quantum oracle for the function . But suppose instead that we have a classical oracle for , i.e. a black box which, on input , outputs the value of . Can we determine with certainty using a single query to the classical oracle? Justify your answer.