Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 324 3 b ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Apply to the data and phase quantum registers, leaving the flag quantum ancilla untouched. This inverse needs no extra oracle assumption: the promised dyadic eigenvalues give , hence . The inverse of each controlled unitary gate used in can therefore be built from repeated uses of the supplied controlled-, and the known Hadamard gates and quantum Fourier transform gates can be reversed. Uncomputation is necessary to erase the eigenvalue label coherently. The resulting quantum state isA quantum measurement in the computational basis of the flag followed by postselection on one yieldsThis requires . For a normalized input and nonnegative eigenvalues, the success probability of positive quantum spectral filtering satisfies . In the general inequality, equality holds precisely when the input is supported on the minimum-eigenvalue eigenspace. Omitting uncomputation and discarding the phase quantum register would instead leave a mixed state with diagonal weights proportional to , rather than the desired coherent pure state.
The printed universal nonzero-success request needs a nonkernel-input hypothesis. An -qubit Hermitian operator has eigenvalues, counted with multiplicity. All are distinct, and the printed dyadic grid contains exactly possible values. They therefore occupy the entire grid, including zero: this is a multiplicity-free complete dyadic spectrum, and . Taking , , and satisfies every printed spectral promise but gives . No normalized output vector exists, so no algorithm can deliver it with nonzero probability.
For every input outside the kernel, the procedure above has , giving the requested strict bound on the meaningful domain. The corrected result is therefore exact quantum spectral filtering conditional on , with the boxed probability. This does not require knowing the input probability amplitudes or making extra copies of an unknown quantum state. Arbitrarily small nonzero support outside the kernel gives arbitrarily small success probability, and a failed flag measurement disturbs the input; fresh independent trials cannot be assumed when only one unknown physical input is supplied.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 324 3 b i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let denote the coherent exact quantum phase estimation unitary operator from the preceding part, with the data quantum register written first. For every eigenvector of ,because and lies in , with no phase-aliasing ambiguity. Apply coherently to the input quantum state and a clean quantum register; do not measure the eigenvalue label. By linearity it produces .
Append a quantum ancilla in , and use the provided quantum variable rotation with , choosing the nonnegative cosine. The resulting normalized quantum state isThe sum covers both terms; this fixes the potentially ambiguous sum placement in the abbreviated display. The orthonormal basis of eigenvectors and the unit length of each rotated quantum ancilla show that its norm is one. This is quantum spectral filtering by multiplication, not the reciprocal rotation used in the HHL algorithm.