Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / iii / Paper 61 / 3 / i / Solution

Let $L=2^n$ and use an $n$-qubit phase register. Begin with $|0^n⟩|v⟩$ and apply $H^{\otimes n}$ to the phase register, creating $L^{-1/2}{\sum }_{m=0}^{L-1}|m⟩|v⟩$. Controlled powers implementFor phase qubit $j$, counted from the most significant bit, the controlled power is $U^{2^{n-j}}$. It can be built from $2^{n-j}$ calls to the supplied controlled-$U$ gate. By quantum phase kickback, the phase-register state isApply the inverse quantum Fourier transform to obtain the exact quantum phase estimation mappingA computational basis measurement of the first register determines $y$ with certainty, hence $\varphi =y/L$ and the eigenvalue $e^{2\pi i\varphi }$. Exactness follows from the promised dyadic phase; no approximation or continued-fraction reconstruction is needed.

With only controlled-$U$ available as a query, the repeated-power construction uses $L-1=2^n-1$ oracle calls. The other Fourier-transform circuitry has polynomial size in $n$ in the ideal phase-gate model. The cost of exact phase estimation on a dyadic spectrum is therefore not polynomial in $n$ in this primitive-query model unless powered queries have additional implementations. The task does not require such a polynomial bound.