Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-63/1/a/solution

Write the quantum circuit as , and let , . Use a nonlocal quantum clock with orthonormal states . Let the work space include the quantum witness and the ancilla qubits. The input penalty of a history Hamiltonian is built from
It annihilates precisely the correctly initialized ancilla qubits, leaving the quantum witness unrestricted. The Feynman-Kitaev Hamiltonian without output penalty is
Each propagation summand is positive: on vectors with adjacent clock components , its quadratic form is . The input penalty of a history Hamiltonian is also a positive semidefinite operator, so .
To verify that this is a stoquastic Hamiltonian, use the work computational basis and the clock basis. Every is a permutation matrix, so the propagation off-diagonal entries are nonpositive. The zero-ancilla projectors are diagonal, while also has nonpositive off-diagonal entries. No positive off-diagonal entry is introduced by summing these terms. Thus is positive semidefinite and stoquastic, with no output penalty.
The construction uses the abstract dimensional clock space. A binary implementation needs diagonal penalties for unused clock labels. The clock transitions are nonlocal; the construction alone does not establish fixed qubit locality of an ordinary local Hamiltonian problem.

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