Paper 3, Section I, 10D

Quantum Information and Computation
Part II, 2018

Let BnB_{n} denote the set of all nn-bit strings. For any Boolean function on 2 bits f:B2B1f: B_{2} \rightarrow B_{1} consider the linear operation on 3 qubits defined by

Ufxy=xyf(x)U_{f}|x\rangle|y\rangle=|x\rangle|y \oplus f(x)\rangle

for all xB2,yB1x \in B_{2}, y \in B_{1} and \oplus denoting addition of bits modulo 2 . Here the first register is a 2-qubit register and the second is a 1-qubit register. We are able to apply only the 1-qubit Pauli XX and Hadamard HH gates to any desired qubits, as well as the 3 -qubit gate UfU_{f} to any three qubits. We can also perform measurements in the computational basis.

(a) Describe how we can construct the state

f=12xB2(1)f(x)x|f\rangle=\frac{1}{2} \sum_{x \in B_{2}}(-1)^{f(x)}|x\rangle

starting from the standard 3-qubit state 000|0\rangle|0\rangle|0\rangle.

(b) Suppose now that the gate UfU_{f} is given to us but ff is not specified. However ff is promised to be one of two following cases:

(i) ff is a constant function (i.e. f(x)=0f(x)=0 for all xx, or f(x)=1f(x)=1 for all xx ),

(ii) for any 2-bit string x=b1b2x=b_{1} b_{2} we have f(b1b2)=b1b2f\left(b_{1} b_{2}\right)=b_{1} \oplus b_{2} (with \oplus as above).

Show how we may determine with certainty which of the two cases (i) or (ii) applies, using only a single application of UfU_{f}.