Quantum Pattern Matching

Abstract

We propose a quantum algorithm for closest pattern matching which allows us to search for as many distinct patterns as we wish in a given string (database), requiring a query function per symbol of the pattern alphabet. This represents a significant practical advantage when compared to Grover's search algorithm as well as to other quantum pattern matching methods, which rely on building specific queries for particular patterns. Our method makes arbitrary searches on long static databases much more realistic and implementable. Our algorithm, inspired by Grover's, returns the position of the closest substring to a given pattern of size $M$ with non-negligible probability in $O(\sqrt{N})$ queries, where $N$ is the size of the string. Furthermore, we give the full recipe to implement our algorithm (together with its total circuit complexity), thus offering an oracle-based quantum algorithm ready to be implemented.