On the success probability of quantum order finding

01/19/2022

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by   Martin Ekerå, et al.

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We prove a lower bound on the probability of Shor's order-finding algorithm successfully recovering the order r in a single run. The bound implies that by performing two limited searches in the classical post-processing part of the algorithm, a high success probability can be guaranteed, for any r, without re-running the quantum part or increasing the exponent length compared to Shor. Asymptotically, in the limit as r tends to infinity, the probability of successfully recovering r in a single run tends to one. Already for moderate r, a high success probability exceeding e.g. 1 - 10^-4 can be guaranteed. As corollaries, we prove analogous results for the probability of completely factoring any integer N in a single run of the order-finding algorithm.