Solving The Travelling Salesman Problem Using A Single Qubit

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Goswami, Kapil, Veereshi, Gagan Anekonda, Schmelcher, Peter, Mukherjee, Rick
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Goswami, Kapil
Veereshi, Gagan Anekonda
Schmelcher, Peter
Mukherjee, Rick
author_facet Goswami, Kapil
Veereshi, Gagan Anekonda
Schmelcher, Peter
Mukherjee, Rick
contents The travelling salesman problem (TSP) is a popular NP-hard-combinatorial optimization problem that requires finding the optimal way for a salesman to travel through different cities once and return to the initial city. The existing methods of solving TSPs on quantum systems are either gate-based or binary variable-based encoding. Both approaches are resource-expensive in terms of the number of qubits while performing worse compared to existing classical algorithms even for small-size problems. We present an algorithm that solves an arbitrary TSP using a single qubit by invoking the principle of quantum parallelism. The cities are represented as quantum states on the Bloch sphere while the preparation of superposition states allows us to traverse multiple paths at once. The underlying framework of our algorithm is a quantum version of the classical Brachistochrone approach. Optimal control methods are employed to create a selective superposition of the quantum states to find the shortest route of a given TSP. The numerical simulations solve a sample of four to nine cities for which exact solutions are obtained. The algorithm can be implemented on any quantum platform capable of efficiently rotating a qubit and allowing state tomography measurements. For the TSP problem sizes considered in this work, our algorithm is more resource-efficient and accurate than existing quantum algorithms with the potential for scalability. A potential speed-up of polynomial time over classical algorithms is discussed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_17207
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Solving The Travelling Salesman Problem Using A Single Qubit
Goswami, Kapil
Veereshi, Gagan Anekonda
Schmelcher, Peter
Mukherjee, Rick
Quantum Physics
Computational Complexity
Optimization and Control
The travelling salesman problem (TSP) is a popular NP-hard-combinatorial optimization problem that requires finding the optimal way for a salesman to travel through different cities once and return to the initial city. The existing methods of solving TSPs on quantum systems are either gate-based or binary variable-based encoding. Both approaches are resource-expensive in terms of the number of qubits while performing worse compared to existing classical algorithms even for small-size problems. We present an algorithm that solves an arbitrary TSP using a single qubit by invoking the principle of quantum parallelism. The cities are represented as quantum states on the Bloch sphere while the preparation of superposition states allows us to traverse multiple paths at once. The underlying framework of our algorithm is a quantum version of the classical Brachistochrone approach. Optimal control methods are employed to create a selective superposition of the quantum states to find the shortest route of a given TSP. The numerical simulations solve a sample of four to nine cities for which exact solutions are obtained. The algorithm can be implemented on any quantum platform capable of efficiently rotating a qubit and allowing state tomography measurements. For the TSP problem sizes considered in this work, our algorithm is more resource-efficient and accurate than existing quantum algorithms with the potential for scalability. A potential speed-up of polynomial time over classical algorithms is discussed.
title Solving The Travelling Salesman Problem Using A Single Qubit
topic Quantum Physics
Computational Complexity
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.17207