On the hardness of distinguishing mixed-state quantum computations

dc.creatorRosgen, Bill
dc.creatorWatrous, John
dc.date2004-07-22
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T03:21:36Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T03:21:36Z
dc.descriptionThis paper considers the following problem. Two mixed-state quantum circuits Q and R are given, and the goal is to determine which of two possibilities holds: (i) Q and R act nearly identically on all possible quantum state inputs, or (ii) there exists some input state that Q and R transform into almost perfectly distinguishable outputs. This problem may be viewed as an abstraction of the following problem: given two physical processes described by sequences of local interactions, are the processes effectively the same or are they different? We prove that this problem is a complete promise problem for the class QIP of problems having quantum interactive proof systems, and is therefore PSPACE-hard. This is in sharp contrast to the fact that the analogous problem for classical (probabilistic) circuits is in AM, and for unitary quantum circuits is in QMA.
dc.description17 pages
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0407056
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0407056
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/32260
dc.subjectComputational Complexity
dc.subjectQuantum Physics
dc.subjectF.1.2; F.1.3
dc.titleOn the hardness of distinguishing mixed-state quantum computations
dc.typetext

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