Weakly measured while loops: peeking at quantum states

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum while loop primitive using weak measurements, balancing information gain and perturbation, and demonstrates its effectiveness by solving Grover's search problem while preserving quadratic speed-up.

Contribution

It proposes a novel quantum while loop primitive based on weak measurements, enabling controlled perturbation and information trade-offs in quantum algorithms.

Findings

The primitive allows high-probability estimates of loop iterations.

Grover's search maintains quadratic speed-up with the new primitive.

Conditions are provided for reliable iteration count estimation.

Abstract

A while loop tests a termination condition on every iteration. On a quantum computer, such measurements perturb the evolution of the algorithm. We define a while loop primitive using weak measurements, offering a trade-off between the perturbation caused and the amount of information gained per iteration. This trade-off is adjusted with a parameter set by the programmer. We provide sufficient conditions that let us determine, with arbitrarily high probability, a worst-case estimate of the number of iterations the loop will run for. As an example, we solve Grover's search problem using a while loop and prove the quadratic quantum speed-up is maintained.