Resource and entanglement study of a hybrid qudit-qubit quantum algorithm for solving the integer programming problem

Recently, a hybrid qudit-qubit algorithm [1] was presented for solving the integer programming problem with a polynomial quantum advantage. In this work, we investigate the algorithm [1] to understand the role of qudits (d-dimensional quantum system) by conducting a comparative resource analysis with its qubit-only implementation and the classical simulability of the algorithm by exploring the entanglement structure. The resource analysis part is performed in terms of logical gate counts, and fault-tolerant physical resources, including non-Clifford gates. The hybrid qudit-qubit implementation has a more compact structure of the unitary operators as opposed to its qubit-only simulation which reduces the logical and fault-tolerant resource requirements. Two example problems, one with qutrits (d=3) and the other with ququint (d=5), when contrasted with their qubit-only implementation, within a simplified fault-tolerant resource model, showed about 180 times and about 2220 times fewer total resource count, respectively. For the entanglement study, volume-law-like entropy growth and signatures of multi-partite entanglement is observed leading to increasing difficulty in the classical simulation of the algorithm. The algorithm generates synergistic tri-partite entanglement even for a quadratic problem, revealing that the algorithmic structure itself can generate higher-order entanglement in the system independent of the problem.