Quantum Rough Counting and Its Application to Grover's Search Algorithm

Abstract

We propose in this paper a rough counting algorithm and modified version of Grover's search algorithm. The proposed counting algorithm uses Deutsch-Jozsa's algorithm to roughly estimate the number of items satisfying some search conditions by reconstructing the output distribution. The modified Grover's search combines the counting into one part of the algorithm and uses the counting result to determine the number of Grover's iterations taken to get such items. We provide an analysis of expected probability of the proposed algorithm taking into account the problem size, the number of satisfying items and the query complexity to show that the proposed modified Grover's search is optimal.