Quantum Speedup of the Dispersion and Codebook Design Problems

In this article, we propose new formulations of max-sum and max-min dispersion problems that enable solutions via the Grover adaptive search (GAS) quantum algorithm, offering quadratic speedup. Dispersion problems are combinatorial optimization problems classified as NP-hard, which appear often in coding theory and wireless communications applications involving optimal codebook design. In turn, GAS is a quantum exhaustive search algorithm that can be used to implement full-fledged maximum-likelihood optimal solutions. In conventional naive formulations, however, it is typical to rely on a binary vector spaces, resulting in search space sizes prohibitive even for GAS. To circumvent this challenge, we instead formulate the search of optimal dispersion problem over Dicke states, an equal superposition of binary vectors with equal Hamming weights, which significantly reduces the search space leading to a simplification of the quantum circuit via the elimination of penalty terms. In addition, we propose a method to replace distance coefficients with their ranks, contributing to the reduction of the number of qubits. Our analysis demonstrates that as a result of the proposed techniques, a reduction in query complexity compared to the conventional GAS using the Hadamard transform is achieved, enhancing the feasibility of the quantum-based solution of the dispersion problem.