Entropy (Oct 2022)

Using Variational Quantum Algorithm to Solve the LWE Problem

  • Lihui Lv,
  • Bao Yan,
  • Hong Wang,
  • Zhi Ma,
  • Yangyang Fei,
  • Xiangdong Meng,
  • Qianheng Duan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/e24101428
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24, no. 10
p. 1428

Abstract

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The variational quantum algorithm (VQA) is a hybrid classical–quantum algorithm. It can actually run in an intermediate-scale quantum device where the number of available qubits is too limited to perform quantum error correction, so it is one of the most promising quantum algorithms in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era. In this paper, two ideas for solving the learning with errors problem (LWE) using VQA are proposed. First, after reducing the LWE problem into the bounded distance decoding problem, the quantum approximation optimization algorithm (QAOA) is introduced to improve classical methods. Second, after the LWE problem is reduced into the unique shortest vector problem, the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is used to solve it, and the number of qubits required is calculated in detail. Small-scale experiments are carried out for the two LWE variational quantum algorithms, and the experiments show that VQA improves the quality of the classical solutions.

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