Abstract
It has been shown that, starting from the state |0>, in the general case, an arbitrary quantum state |\psi> cannot be prepared with exponential precision in polynomial time. However, we show that for the important special case when |\psi> represents discrete values of some real, continuous function \psi(x), efficient preparation is possible by applying the eigenvalue estimation algorithm to a Hamiltonian which has \psi(x) as an eigenstate. We construct the required Hamiltonian explicitly and present an iterative algorithm for removing unwanted superpositions from the output state in order to reach |\psi> within exponential accuracy. The method works under very general conditions and can be used to provide the quantum simulation algorithm with very accurate and general starting states.