Journal of Quantum Information Science, 2011, 1, 43-49
doi:10.4236/jqis.2011.12006 Published Online September 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jqis)
Copyright © 2011 SciRes. JQIS
Adaptive Phase Matching in Grover’s Algorithm
Panchi Li
1*
, Kaoping Song
2
1
School of Computer & Information Technology, Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing, China
2
School of Petroleum Engineering, Northeast Petroleum University, Daqing, China
E-mail:
*
lipanchi@vip.sina.com
Received June 28, 2011; revised August 16, 2011; accepted August 26, 2011
Abstract
When the Grover’s algorithm is applied to search an unordered database, the successful probability usually
decreases with the increase of marked items. In order to solve this problem, an adaptive phase matching is
proposed. With application of the new phase matching, when the fraction of marked items is greater
35 8
, the successful probability is equal to 1 with at most two Grover iterations. The validity of the
new phase matching is verified by a search example.
Keywords:
Quantum Computing, Quantum Searching, Grover’s Algorithm, Phase Matching, Adaptive Phase
Shifting
1. Introduction
Shor’s prime factoring algorithm and Grover’s quantum
search algorithm are two of the great quantum algorithms
[1,2]. Grover’s search algorithm provides a dramatic
example of the potential speedup offered by quantum
computers [2,3]. The problem addressed by Grover’s
algorithm can be viewed as trying to find a marked ele-
ment in an unsorted database of size N. To solve this
problem, a classical computer would need, on average,
2N database queries and N queries in the worst case.
Using Grover’s algorithm, a quantum computer can ac-
complish the same task using merely
NO
queries.
The importance of Grover’s result stems from the fact
that it proves the enhanced power of quantum computers
compared to classical ones for a whole class of oracle-
based problems, for which the bound on the efficiency of
classical algorithms is known. At present, Grover’s quan-
tum search algorithm has been greatly noticed and has
become a challenging research field. However, the
Grover’s algorithm also has some limitations. When the
fraction of marked items is greater than a quarter of the
total items in the database, the success probability will
rapidly decrease, and when the fraction of marked items
is greater than half of the total items in the database, the
algorithm will be disabled.
Up to now, many efforts in improving Grover’s origi-
nal algorithm have been done. Boyer et al. have given
analytical expressions for the amplitude of the states in
Grover’s search algorithm and tight bounds on the algo-
rithm [4]. Zalka has improved these tight bounds and
showed that Grover’s algorithm is optimal [5]. Biron et
al. generalized Grover’s algorithm to an arbitrarily dis-
tributed initial state [6]. Pati recast the algorithm in geo-
metric language and studied the bounds on the algorithm
[7]. Ozhigov showed that quantum search can be further
speeded up by a factor of
2 by parallelism [8]. Gin-
grich et al. also generalized Grover’s algorithm with par-
allelism with improvement [9]. The Grover’s original
algorithm consists of inversion of the amplitude in the
desired state and inversion-about-average operation [2].
In [10], Grover presented a general algorithm:
Q
UIU
, where U is any unitary operation, U
is the
adjoint of U,
2II
, 2II
,
is an initial state and
is a desired state. When
UU
H
, where H is the Walsh-Hadamard trans-
formation, and
0
, the general algorithm becomes
the original algorithm. Long extended Grover’s algo-
rithm [11]. In Long’s algorithm,
and
are ex-
pressed as
1II
e
i
and
i
1
Ie
, respectively. When π
, Long’s algo-
mes Grover’s original algorithm. Li et al. pro-
posed that U in Long’s algorithm can be replaced by any
unitary operation V [12,13]. Biham generalized the
Grover’s algorithm to deal with an arbitrary pure initial
state and an arbitrary mixed initial state [14,15]. In [16],
Grover presented the new algorithm by replacing the
selective inversions by selective phase shifts of
rithm beco
π 3 .