Paper 4, Section I, 10D

Quantum Information and Computation
Part II, 2018

Let BnB_{n} denote the set of all nn-bit strings. Suppose we are given a 2-qubit quantum gate Ix0I_{x_{0}} which is promised to be of the form

Ix0x={xxx0xx=x0I_{x_{0}}|x\rangle=\left\{\begin{array}{rr} |x\rangle & x \neq x_{0} \\ -|x\rangle & x=x_{0} \end{array}\right.

but the 2-bit string x0x_{0} is unknown to us. We wish to determine x0x_{0} with the least number of queries to Ix0I_{x_{0}}. Define A=I2ψψA=I-2|\psi\rangle\langle\psi|, where II is the identity operator and ψ=12xB2x|\psi\rangle=\frac{1}{2} \sum_{x \in B_{2}}|x\rangle.

(a) Is AA unitary? Justify your answer.

(b) Compute the action of Ix0I_{x_{0}} on ψ|\psi\rangle, and the action of ψψ|\psi\rangle\langle\psi| on x0\left|x_{0}\right\rangle, in each case expressing your answer in terms of ψ|\psi\rangle and x0\left|x_{0}\right\rangle. Hence or otherwise show that x0x_{0} may be determined with certainty using only one application of the gate Ix0I_{x_{0}}, together with any other gates that are independent of x0x_{0}.

(c) Let fx0:B2B1f_{x_{0}}: B_{2} \rightarrow B_{1} be the function having value 0 for all xx0x \neq x_{0} and having value 1 for x=x0x=x_{0}. It is known that a single use of Ix0I_{x_{0}} can be implemented with a single query to a quantum oracle for the function fx0f_{x_{0}}. But suppose instead that we have a classical oracle for fx0f_{x_{0}}, i.e. a black box which, on input xx, outputs the value of fx0(x)f_{x_{0}}(x). Can we determine x0x_{0} with certainty using a single query to the classical oracle? Justify your answer.