# A Survey of Quantum Theory Inspired Approaches to Information Retrieval

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.04357 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.04357/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 8 Jul 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Towards Feature Selection for Ranking and Classification Exploiting Quantum Annealers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.04346/) (2022)
- [Quantum-Brain: Quantum-Inspired Neural Network Approach to Vision-Brain Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.13378/) (2024)
- [Quantum Cognitively Motivated Decision Fusion for Video Sentiment Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.04406/) (2021)
- [Complementarity-Preserving Generative Theory for Multimodal ECG Synthesis: A Quantum-Inspired Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26695/) (2026)
- [A Survey of Quantum-Cognitively Inspired Sentiment Analysis Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03608/) (2023)
- [On the Representational Limits of Quantum-Inspired 1024-D Document Embeddings: An Experimental Evaluation Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09430/) (2026)
- [Q-FSRU: Quantum-Augmented Frequency-Spectral Fusion for Medical Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.12036/) (2025)
- [Q-FSRU: Quantum-Augmented Frequency-Spectral For Medical Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.23899/) (2025)
- [Algebraic Quantum Intelligence: A New Framework for Reproducible Machine Creativity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.14130/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Since 2004, researchers have been using the mathematical framework of Quantum Theory (QT) in Information Retrieval (IR). QT offers a generalized probability and logic framework. Such a framework has been shown capable of unifying the representation, ranking and user cognitive aspects of IR, and helpful in developing more dynamic, adaptive and context-aware IR systems. Although Quantum-inspired IR is still a growing area, a wide array of work in different aspects of IR has been done and produced promising results. This paper presents a survey of the research done in this area, aiming to show the landscape of the field and draw a road-map of future directions.