Coherence depletion in the Grover quantum search algorithm

Hai-Long Shi, Si-Yuan Liu, Xiao-Hui Wang, Wen-Li Yang, Zhan-Ying Yang, Heng Fan

Published 2016-10-27Version 1

We investigate the role of coherence in the Grover search algorithm by using several typical measures of quantum coherence and quantum correlations. By using the relative entropy of coherence measure, we show that the success probability depends on the depletion of coherence. Explicitly, in the limit case of few searcher items j/N<<1 in large database N>>1, the cost performance about coherence in enhancing the success probability of Grover search is related to the ratio j/N. The same phenomenon can also be found by using the l1 norm of coherence, cost performance of coherence is inversely proportional to the scale of database N. In comparison, the behavior of quantum correlation measures, such as entanglement and discord, generally start from zero then reach the maximum and decrease to almost zero in the whole process of Grover search, the optimal success probability cannot be directly related with quantification of quantum correlation. Additionally, we find that quantum nonlocality does not appear in the Grover search since any two-qubit state does not violate CHSH type Bell inequality. Therefore, it is believed that the coherence can be viewed as a key resource for increasing the success probability in Grover search algorithm.