Demonstration of quantum permutation algorithm with a single photon ququart

Abstract

We report an experiment to demonstrate a quantum permutation determining algorithm with linear optical system. By employing photon's polarization and spatial mode, we realize the quantum ququart states and all the essential permutation transformations. The quantum permutation determining algorithm displays the speedup of quantum algorithm by determining the parity of the permutation in only one step of evaluation compared with two for classical algorithm. This experiment is accomplished in single photon level and the method exhibits universality in high-dimensional quantum computation.