Factoring using 2n+2 qubits with Toffoli based modular multiplication

Abstract

We describe an implementation of Shor’s quantum algorithm to factor n-bit integers using only 2n+2 qubits. In contrast to previous space-optimized implementations, ours features a purely Toffoli based modular multiplication circuit. The circuit depth and the overall gate count are in O(n 3 ) and O(n 3 log n), respectively. We thus achieve the same space and time costs as Takahashi et al. [1], while using a purely classical modular multiplication circuit. As a consequence, our approach evades most of the cost overheads originating from rotation synthesis and enables testing and localization of some faults in both, the logical level circuit and an actual quantum hardware implementation. Our new (in-place) constant-adder, which is used to construct the modular multiplication circuit, uses only dirty ancilla qubits and features a circuit size and depth in O(n log n) and O(n), respectively.