Abstract

Generic quantum search algorithm searches for target entity in an unsorted database by repeatedly applying canonical Grover’s quantum rotation transform to reach near the vicinity of the target entity represented by a basis state in the Hilbert space associated with the qubits. Thus, when qubits are measured, there is a high probability of finding the target entity. However, the number of times quantum rotation transform is to be applied for reaching near the vicinity of the target is a function of the number of target entities present in the unsorted database, which is generally unknown. A wrong estimate of the number of target entities can lead to overshooting or undershooting the targets, thus reducing the success probability. Some proposals have been made to overcome this limitation. These proposals either employ quantum counting to estimate the number of solutions or fixed point schemes. This paper proposes a new scheme for stopping the application of quantum rotation transformation on reaching near the targets by measurement and subsequent processing to estimate the distance of the state vector from the target states. It ensures a success probability, which is at least greater than half for all the ratios of the number of target entities to the total number of entities in a database, which are less than half. The search problem is trivial for remaining possible ratios. The proposed scheme is simpler than quantum counting and more efficient than the known fixed-point schemes. It has same order of computational complexity as canonical Grover`s search algorithm but is slow by a factor of two and requires an additional ancilla qubit.

© 2011 Optical Society of America