CO481/CS467/PHYS467 ASSIGNMENT 1

Due Friday March 17th at 8pm, electronically using Crowdmark

(will constitute 12% out of the 60% assignment marks)
1. Modular arithmetic and factoring 3 marks
Let r be the order of 3 mod 35.

(a) Find r.
(b) What is 3601 mod 35?
r r
(c) Find GCD(35, 3 2 − 1) and GCD(35, 3 2 + 1).

2. Quantum searching 3 marks

(a) Find the smallest positive p so that quantum search via amplitude amplification
finds a solution with certainty using two iterations of the quantum search iterate?
Also give a three decimal approximation to p.
(b) Suppose we have a quantum algorithm A that produces a solution to f (x) = 1 with
1
probability 10000 . What is the smallest positive integer k so that k + 1 iterations of
the quantum search iterate finds a solution with probability less than k iterations
would?

3. Exact one-out-of-four searching 2 marks

Let f : {0, 1}n 7→ {0, 1}. Suppose we wish to find a string x ∈ {0, 1}n such that f (x) = 1.
Suppose further that exactly one quarter of all the strings x in {0, 1}n satisfy f (x) = 1.
Show how to find a string x with certainty using exactly one evaluation of the black-box
Uf : |x⟩|b⟩ 7→ |x⟩|b ⊕ f (x)⟩.

4. Quantum counting 3 marks

Suppose f : {0, 1}2n 7→ {0, 1} with a promise that the number of solutions to f (x) = 1 is
either 2n or 2n+1 .
Explain how to decide, with high probability, whether √ there are 2n or 2n+1 solutions using
a number of queries to Uf : |x⟩ 7→ (−1)f (x) |x⟩ in O( 2n ).

5. Collision-finding 4 marks
Let f : {1, 2, . . . , N } → X for some finite set of strings X, with the property that f is
two-to-one. That is, for each value y occurring in the range of f , there are two distinct
inputs, x1 , x2 such that f (x1 ) = f (x2 ) = y.
Suppose you are given a black-box for implementing Uf : |x⟩|b⟩ 7→ |x⟩|b ⊕ f (x)⟩, where
x ∈ {1, 2, . . . , N } and b ∈ {0, 1}.
Consider the following collision-finding algorithm:

ˆ Query f (1), f (2), . . . , f (M ), for some M << N .

1
 ˆ If f (x1 ) = f (x2 ) for distinct x1 , x2 ∈ {1, 2, . . . , M }, then output the collision pair
(x1 , x2 ).
ˆ Otherwise, perform a quantum search for a value x2 ∈ {M + 1, M + 2, . . . , N } such
that f (x2 ) = f (x1 ) for some x1 ∈ {1, 2, . . . , M }. Output (x1 , x2 ).

(a) Assuming f (1), f (2), . . . , f (M ) are distinct, what is the probability p that a value x
sampled uniformly at random from {M + 1, M + 2, . . . , N } will satisfy f (x) = f (x1 )
for some x1 ∈ {1, 2, . . . , M }.
(b) How many quantum queries does this algorithm need in order to find a collision with
constant probability? Express your answer in terms of N and M and using big-O
notation. (Do not forget about the queries to compute f (1), f (2), . . . , f (M ) in the
first step.)
(c) Let M = N ϵ for some constant ϵ > 0. Find the value of the constant ϵ that minimizes
the number of queries (up to constant factors) needed to find a collision with high
probability.

6. Parallel quantum searching 2 marks

Suppose f : {0, 1}n 7→ {0, 1} has exactly one solution.
Let Uf : |x⟩ 7→ (−1)f (x) |x⟩ .
√
Show how to find the unique solution to f (x) = 1 with high probability using O( 2n−k )
k
applications of the operation Uf ⊗ Uf ⊗ · · · ⊗ Uf = Uf⊗2 .

7. Parallelizing phase-queries 3 marks

Let Uϕ denote the unitary operation that maps |0⟩ 7→ |0⟩ and |1⟩ 7→ eiϕ |1⟩.
Note that Ukϕ = Uϕk . However, if a black-box process for implementing Uϕ takes time t
then implementing Ukϕ in this serial way takes time kt.

(a) What is the result of applying Uϕ ⊗Uϕ ⊗· · ·⊗Uϕ = Uϕ⊗k to √1 |00 . . . 0⟩+ √1 |11 . . . 1⟩
2 2
=
√1 |0⟩⊗k + √1 |1⟩⊗k ?
2 2

(b) Show that it is possible to parallelize the implementation of Ukϕ in such a way that
all k of the Uϕ gates are applied in parallel (on different qubits). You may perform
standard quantum gates on the qubits before and after the application of the k
parallel phase gates.