Inverse-free quantum state estimation with Heisenberg scaling

TL;DR

This paper introduces an inverse-free quantum state estimation protocol that achieves Heisenberg scaling, requiring only forward queries to estimate an unknown unitary with high precision, improving efficiency over previous methods.

Contribution

The authors develop a new inverse-free quantum state estimation protocol that attains Heisenberg scaling, reducing query complexity and improving upon prior inverse-query dependent methods.

Findings

Achieves Heisenberg scaling in quantum state estimation.

Provides a query upper bound for inverse-free amplitude estimation.

Disproves a previous conjecture on quantum estimation complexity.

Abstract

In this paper, we present an inverse-free pure quantum state estimation protocol that achieves Heisenberg scaling. Specifically, let $\mathcal{H}\cong \mathbb{C}^d$ be a $d$-dimensional Hilbert space with an orthonormal basis $\{|1\rangle,\ldots,|d\rangle\}$ and $U$ be an unknown unitary on $\mathcal{H}$. Our protocol estimates $U|d\rangle$ to within trace distance error $\varepsilon$ using $O(\min\{d^{3/2}/\varepsilon,d/\varepsilon^2\})$ forward queries to $U$. This complements the previous result $O(d\log(d)/\varepsilon)$ by van Apeldoorn, Cornelissen, Gily\'en, and Nannicini (SODA 2023), which requires both forward and inverse queries. Moreover, our result implies a query upper bound $O(\min\{d^{3/2}/\varepsilon,1/\varepsilon^2\})$ for inverse-free amplitude estimation, improving the previous best upper bound $O(\min\{d^{2}/\varepsilon,1/\varepsilon^2\})$ based on optimal unitary estimation by Haah, Kothari, O'Donnell, and Tang (FOCS 2023), and disproving a conjecture posed in Tang and Wright (2025).