English

Unitary Quantum Cellular Automata for Density Classification

Quantum Physics 2025-10-09 v1

Abstract

We investigate the density classification task (DCT) -- determining the majority bit in a one-dimensional binary lattice -- within a quantum cellular automaton (CA) framework. While there is no one-dimensional two-state, radius r1r \geq 1, deterministic CA with periodic boundary conditions that solves the DCT perfectly, we explore whether a unitary quantum model can succeed. We employ the Partitioned Unitary Quantum Cellular Automaton (PUQCA), a number-conserving model, and, via evolutionary search, find solutions to the DCT where the success condition is stipulated in terms of measurement probabilities rather than convergence to fixed-point configurations. Finally, we identify a classically simulable regime of the PUQCA in which we find rules that solve the DCT at fixed system sizes and analyze their performance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.06947,
  title  = {Unitary Quantum Cellular Automata for Density Classification},
  author = {Pedro C. S. Costa and Yuval R. Sanders and Pedro Paulo Balbi and Gavin K. Brennen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.06947},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

34 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:23:41.516Z