Quantum Link Prediction in Complex Networks

• Main Authors: Moutinho, João P, Melo, André, Coutinho, Bruno, Kovács, István A, Omar, Yasser
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 09-12-2021
• Subjects: Computer Science - Social and Information Networks; Physics - Biological Physics; Physics - Disordered Systems and Neural Networks; Physics - Quantum Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2112.04768

Predicting new links in physical, biological, social, or technological
networks has a significant scientific and societal impact. Path-based link
prediction methods utilize explicit counting of even and odd-length paths
between nodes to quantify a score function and infer new or unobserved links.
Here, we propose a quantum algorithm for path-based link prediction, QLP, using
a controlled continuous-time quantum walk to encode even and odd path-based
prediction scores. Through classical simulations on a few real networks, we
confirm that the quantum walk scoring function performs similarly to other
path-based link predictors. In a brief complexity analysis we identify the
potential of our approach in uncovering a quantum speedup for path-based link
prediction.