Robustness of the adiabatic quantum search -: art. no. 060312

The robustness of the local adiabatic quantum search to decoherence in the instantaneous eigenbasis of the search Hamiltonian is examined. We demonstrate that the asymptotic time complexity of the ideal closed case is preserved, as long as the Hamiltonian dynamics is present. In the special case of pure decoherence where the environment monitors the search Hamiltonian, it is shown that the local adiabatic quantum search performs as the classical search.