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Shor's algorithm has seriously challenged information security based on public key cryptosystems. However, to break the widely used RSA-2048 scheme, one needs millions of physical qubits, which is far beyond current technical capabilities. Here, we report a universal quantum algorithm for integer factorization by combining the classical lattice reduction with a quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA). The number of qubits required is O(logN/loglog N), which is sublinear in the bit length of the integer $N$, making it the most qubit-saving factorization algorithm to date. We demonstrate the algorithm experimentally by factoring integers up to 48 bits with 10 superconducting qubits, the largest integer factored on a quantum device. We estimate that a quantum circuit with 372 physical qubits and a depth of thousands is necessary to challenge RSA-2048 using our algorithm. Our study shows great promise in expediting the application of current noisy quantum computers, and paves the way to factor large integers of realistic cryptographic significance., Comment: 32 pages, 12 figures

We propose a variational quantum attack algorithm (VQAA) for classical AES-like symmetric cryptography, as exemplified the simplified-data encryption standard (S-DES). In the VQAA, the known ciphertext is encoded as the ground state of a Hamiltonian that is constructed through a regular graph, and the ground state can be found using a variational approach. We designed the ansatz and cost function for the S-DES's variational quantum attack. It is surprising that sometimes the VQAA is even faster than Grove's algorithm as demonstrated by our simulation results. The relationships of the entanglement entropy, concurrence and the cost function are investigated, which indicate that entanglement plays a crucial role in the speedup.

Advanced Encryption Standard(AES) is one of the most widely used block ciphers nowadays, and has been established as an encryption standard in 2001. Here we design AES-128 and the sample-AES(S-AES) quantum circuits for deciphering. In the quantum circuit of AES-128, we perform an affine transformation for the SubBytes part to solve the problem that the initial state of the output qubits in SubBytes is not the $\ket{0}^{\otimes 8}$ state. After that, we are able to encode the new round sub-key on the qubits encoding the previous round sub-key, and this improvement reduces the number of qubits used by 224 compared with Langenberg et al.'s implementation. For S-AES, a complete quantum circuit is presented with only 48 qubits, which is already within the reach of existing noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers.

Utilizing quantum computer to investigate quantum chemistry is an important research field nowadays. In addition to the ground-state problems that have been widely studied, the determination of excited-states plays a crucial role in the prediction and modeling of chemical reactions and other physical processes. Here, we propose a full circuit-based quantum algorithm for obtaining the excited-state spectrum of a quantum chemistry Hamiltonian. Compared with previous classical-quantum hybrid variational algorithms, our method eliminates the classical optimization process, reduces the resource cost caused by the interaction between different systems, and achieves faster convergence rate and stronger robustness against noise. The parameter updating for determining the next energy-level is naturally dependent on the energy measurement outputs of the previous energy-level and can be realized by only modifying the state preparation process of ancillary system, introducing little additional resource overhead. Numerical simulations of the algorithm with hydrogen and LiH molecule are presented. Furthermore, we offer an experimental demonstration of the algorithm on a superconducting quantum computing platform, and the results show a good agreement with theoretical expectations. The algorithm can be widely applied to various Hamiltonian spectrum determination problems on quantum computers.

Finding a maximum or minimum is a fundamental building block in many mathematical models. Compared with classical algorithms, Durr, Hoyer's quantum algorithm (DHA) achieves quadratic speed. However, its key step, the quantum exponential searching algorithm (QESA), which is based on Grover algorithm, is not a sure-success algorithm. Meanwhile, quantum circuits encounter the gate decomposition problem due to variation of the scale of data. In this paper, we propose an optimized quantum algorithm for searching maximum and minimum, based on DHA and the optimal quantum exact search algorithm. Furthermore, we provide the corresponding quantum circuits, together with three equivalent simplifications. In circumstances when we can exactly estimate the ratio of the number of solutions M and the searched space N, our method can improve the successful probability close to 100%. Furthermore, compared with DHA, our algorithm shows an advantage in complexity with large databases and in the gate complexity of constructing oracles. Experiments have been executed on an IBM superconducting processor with two qubits, and a practical problem of finding the minimum from Titanic passengers' age was numerically simulated. Both showed that our optimized maximum or minimum performs more efficiently compared with DHA. Our algorithm can serve as an important subroutine in various quantum algorithms which involves searching maximum or minimum.

The recently theoretical and experimental researches related to $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric system have attracted unprecedented attention because of various novel features and potentials in extending canonical quantum mechanics. However, as the counterpart of $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry, there are only a few researches on anti-$\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry. Here, we propose an algorithm for simulating the universal anti-$\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric system with quantum circuit. Utilizing the protocols, an oscillation of information flow is observed for the first time in our Nuclear Magnetic Resonance quantum simulator. We will show that information will recover from the environment completely when the anti-$\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry is broken, whereas no information can be retrieved in the symmetry-unbroken phase. Our work opens the gate for practical quantum simulation and experimental investigation of universal anti-$\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric system in quantum computer.

Gradient descent method, as one of the major methods in numerical optimization, is the key ingredient in many machine learning algorithms. As one of the most fundamental way to solve the optimization problems, it promises the function value to move along the direction of steepest descent. For the vast resource consumption when dealing with high-dimensional problems, a quantum version of this iterative optimization algorithm has been proposed recently[arXiv:1612.01789]. Here, we develop this protocol and implement it on a quantum simulator with limited resource. Moreover, a prototypical experiment was shown with a 4-qubit Nuclear Magnetic Resonance quantum processor, demonstrating a optimization process of polynomial function iteratively. In each iteration, we achieved an average fidelity of 94\% compared with theoretical calculation via full-state tomography. In particular, the iterative point gradually converged to the local minimum. We apply our method to multidimensional scaling problem, further showing the potentially capability to yields an exponentially improvement compared with classical counterparts. With the onrushing tendency of quantum information, our work could provide a subroutine for the application of future practical quantum computers., 6+4 pages, 8 figures

The ability of implementing quantum operations plays fundamental role in manipulating quantum systems. Creation and annihilation operators which transform a quantum state to another by adding or subtracting a particle are crucial of constructing quantum description of many body quantum theory and quantum field theory. Here we present a quantum algorithm to perform them by the linear combination of unitary operations associated with a two-qubit ancillary system. Our method can realize creation and annihilation operators simultaneously in the subspace of the whole system. A prototypical experiment was performed with a 4-qubit Nuclear Magnetic Resonance processor, demonstrating the algorithm via full state tomography. The creation and annihilation operators are realized with a fidelity all above 96% and a probability about 50%. Moreover, our method can be employed to quantum random walk in an arbitrary initial state. With the prosperous development of quantum computing, our work provides a quantum control technology to implement non-unitary evolution in near-term quantum computer., Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures

The quantum clock synchronization (QCS) is to measure the time difference among the spatially separated clocks with the principle of quantum mechanics. The first QCS algorithm proposed by Chuang and Jozsa is merely based on two parties, which is further extended and generalized to the multiparty situation by Krco and Paul. They present a multiparty QCS protocol based upon W states that utilizes shared prior entanglement and broadcast of classical information to synchronize spatially separated clocks. Shortly afterwards, Ben-Av and Exman came up with an optimized multiparty QCS using Z state. In this work, we firstly report an implementation of Krco and Ben-AV multiparty QCS algorithm using a four-qubit Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). The experimental results show a great agreement with the theory and also prove Ben-AV multiparty QCS algorithm more accurate than Krco., Comment: 6 pages and 6 figures. All comments are welcome!