Efficient Ancilla-Free Reversible and Quantum Circuits for the Hidden Weighted Bit Function

The Hidden Weighted Bit function plays an important role in the study of classical models of computation. A common belief is that this function is exponentially hard to implement using reversible ancilla-free circuits, even though introducing a small number of ancillae allows a very efficient implementation. In this paper, we refute the exponential hardness conjecture by developing a polynomial-size reversible ancilla-free circuit computing the Hidden Weighted Bit function. Our circuit has size O(n^6.42), where n is the number of input bits. We also show that the Hidden Weighted Bit function can be computed by a quantum ancilla-free circuit of size O(n^2). The technical tools employed come from a combination of Theoretical Computer Science (Barringtons theorem) and Physics (simulation of fermionic Hamiltonians) techniques.