In this paper, we show that the ability to switch globally between two 2-local Hamiltonians on n qubits is sufficient for achieving universal unitary dynamics on those n qubits. Of the two Hamiltonians used in the construction, one is comprised of nearest-neighbour two-qubit interactions on a one-dimensional chain, the other is comprised of single-qubit interactions. We describe a scheme for choosing the switching times in order to generate arbitrary one- and two-qubit gates on the n qubits. However the switching scheme is inefficient, and we leave as an open problem the question of whether the universality of the Hamiltonians can be exploited in an efficient way.
Recent work has demonstrated the existence of universal Hamiltonians - simple spin lattice models that can simulate any other quantum many body system to any desired level of accuracy. Until now proofs of universality have relied on explicit constructions, tailored to each specific family of universal Hamiltonians. In this work we go beyond this approach, and completely classify the simulation ability of quantum Hamiltonians by their complexity classes. We do this by deriving necessary and sufficient complexity theoretic conditions characterising universal quantum Hamiltonians. Although the re…
Suppose we can apply a given 2-qubit Hamiltonian H to any (ordered) pair of qubits. We say H is n-universal if it can be used to approximate any unitary operation on n qubits. While it is well known that almost any 2-qubit Hamiltonian is 2-universal (Deutsch, Barenco, Ekert 1995; Lloyd 1995), an explicit characterization of the set of non-universal 2-qubit Hamiltonians has been elusive. Our main result is a complete characterization of 2-non-universal 2-qubit Hamiltonians. In particular, there are three ways that a 2-qubit Hamiltonian H can fail to be universal: (1) H shares an eigenvector wit…
A family of quantum Hamiltonians is said to be universal if any other finite-dimensional Hamiltonian can be approximately encoded within the low-energy space of a Hamiltonian from that family. If the encoding is efficient, universal families of Hamiltonians can be used as universal analogue quantum simulators and universal quantum computers, and the problem of approximately determining the ground-state energy of a Hamiltonian from a universal family is QMA-complete. One natural way to categorise Hamiltonians into families is in terms of the interactions they are built from. Here we prove unive…
We construct a family of time-independent nearest-neighbor Hamiltonians coupling eight-state systems on a 1D ring that enables universal quantum computation. Hamiltonians in this family can achieve universality either by driving a continuous-time quantum walk or by terminating an adiabatic algorithm. In either case, the universality property can be understood as arising from an efficient simulation of a programmable quantum circuit. Using gadget perturbation theory, one can demonstrate the same kind of universality for related Hamiltonian families acting on qubits in 2D. Our results demonstrat…
We present a new scheme to perform noise resilient universal adiabatic quantum computation using two-body interactions. To achieve this, we introduce a new family of error detecting subsystem codes whose gauge generators and a set of their logical operators - capable of encoding universal Hamiltonian computations - can be implemented using two-body interactions. Logical operators of the code are used to encode any given computational Hamiltonian, and the gauge operators are used to construct a penalty Hamiltonian whose ground subspace is protected against local-errors. In contrast to previous …
It has been established that local lattice spin Hamiltonians can be used for universal adiabatic quantum computation. However, the 2-local model Hamiltonians used in these proofs are general and hence do not limit the types of interactions required between spins. To address this concern, the present paper provides two simple model Hamiltonians that are of practical interest to experimentalists working towards the realization of a universal adiabatic quantum computer. The model Hamiltonians presented are the simplest known QMA-complete 2-local Hamiltonians. The 2-local Ising model with 1-local …
Recent work has characterised rigorously what it means for one quantum system to simulate another, and demonstrated the existence of universal Hamiltonians -- simple spin lattice Hamiltonians that can replicate the entire physics of any other quantum many body system. Previous universality results have required proofs involving complicated `chains' of perturbative `gadgets'. In this paper, we derive a significantly simpler and more powerful method of proving universality of Hamiltonians, directly leveraging the ability to encode quantum computation into ground states. This provides new insight…
What interactions are sufficient to simulate arbitrary quantum dynamics in a composite quantum system? We provide an efficient algorithm to simulate any desired two-body Hamiltonian evolution using any fixed two-body entangling n-qubit Hamiltonian and local unitaries. It follows that universal quantum computation can be performed using any entangling interaction and local unitary operations.
In this work we extend the notion of universal quantum Hamiltonians to the setting of translationally-invariant systems. We present a construction that allows a two-dimensional spin lattice with nearest-neighbour interactions, open boundaries, and translational symmetry to simulate any local target Hamiltonian---i.e. to reproduce the whole of the target system within its low-energy subspace to arbitrarily-high precision. Since this implies the capability to simulate non-translationally-invariant many-body systems with translationally-invariant couplings, any effect such as characteristics comm…
We present a Hamiltonian quantum computation scheme universal for quantum computation (BQP). Our Hamiltonian is a sum of a polynomial number (in the number of gates L in the quantum circuit) of time-independent, constant-norm, 2-local qubit-qubit interaction terms. Furthermore, each qubit in the system interacts only with a constant number of other qubits. The computer runs in three steps - starts in a simple initial product-state, evolves it for time of order L^2 (up to logarithmic factors) and wraps up with a two-qubit measurement. Our model differs from the previous universal 2-local Hamilt…
The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) applies two Hamiltonians to a quantum system in alternation. The original goal of the algorithm was to drive the system close to the ground state of one of the Hamiltonians. This paper shows that the same alternating procedure can be used to perform universal quantum computation: the times for which the Hamiltonians are applied can be programmed to give a computationally universal dynamics. The Hamiltonians required can be as simple as homogeneous sums of single-qubit Pauli X's and two-local ZZ Hamiltonians on a one-dimensional line of qubi…
Time is a valuable resource and it seems intuitive that longer time should lead to better precision in Hamiltonian parameter estimation. However recent studies have put this intuition into question, showing longer time may even lead to worse estimation in certain cases. Here we show that the intuition can be restored if coherent feedback controls are included. By deriving asymptotically optimal feedback controls we present a quantification of the maximal improvement feedback controls can provide in Hamiltonian parameter estimation and show a universal time scaling for the precision limit of Ha…
What interactions are sufficient to simulate arbitrary quantum dynamics in a composite quantum system? Dodd et al. (quant-ph/0106064) provided a partial solution to this problem in the form of an efficient algorithm to simulate any desired two-body Hamiltonian evolution using any fixed two-body entangling N-qubit Hamiltonian, and local unitaries. We extend this result to the case where the component systems have D dimensions. As a consequence we explain how universal quantum computation can be performed with any fixed two-body entangling N-qudit Hamiltonian, and local unitaries.
We derive an encoded universality representation for a generalized anisotropic exchange Hamiltonian that contains cross-product terms in addition to the usual two-particle exchange terms. The recently developed algebraic approach is used to show that the minimal universality-generating encodings of one logical qubit are based on three physical qubits. We show how to generate both single- and two-qubit operations on the logical qubits, using suitably timed conjugating operations derived from analysis of the commutator algebra. The timing of the operations is seen to be crucial in allowing simpl…
We present two universal models of quantum computation with a time-independent, frustration-free Hamiltonian. The first construction uses 3-local (qubit) projectors, and the second one requires only 2-local qubit-qutrit projectors. We build on Feynman's Hamiltonian computer idea and use a railroad-switch type clock register. The resources required to simulate a quantum circuit with L gates in this model are O(L) small-dimensional quantum systems (qubits or qutrits), a time-independent Hamiltonian composed of O(L) local, constant norm, projector terms, the possibility to prepare computational b…
Many-body entangled quantum states studied in condensed matter physics can be primary resources for quantum information, allowing any quantum computation to be realized using measurements alone, on the state. Such a universal state would be remarkably valuable, if only it were thermodynamically stable and experimentally accessible, by virtue of being the unique ground state of a physically reasonable Hamiltonian made of two-body, nearest neighbor interactions. We introduce such a state, composed of six-state particles on a hexagonal lattice, and describe a general method for analyzing its prop…
We show that finding the lowest eigenvalue of a 3-local symmetric stochastic matrix is QMA-complete. We also show that finding the highest energy of a stoquastic Hamiltonian is QMA-complete and that adiabatic quantum computation using certain excited states of a stoquastic Hamiltonian is universal. We also show that adiabatic evolution in the ground state of a stochastic frustration free Hamiltonian is universal. Our results give a new QMA-complete problem arising in the classical setting of Markov chains, and new adiabatically universal Hamiltonians that arise in many physical systems.
Quantum many-body systems exhibit an extremely diverse range of phases and physical phenomena. Here, we prove that the entire physics of any other quantum many-body system is replicated in certain simple, "universal" spin-lattice models. We first characterise precisely what it means for one quantum many-body system to replicate the entire physics of another. We then show that certain very simple spin-lattice models are universal in this very strong sense. Examples include the Heisenberg and XY models on a 2D square lattice (with non-uniform coupling strengths). We go on to fully classify all t…
We present a simple quantum many-body system - a two-dimensional lattice of qubits with a Hamiltonian composed of nearest-neighbor two-body interactions - such that the ground state is a universal resource for quantum computation using single-qubit measurements. This ground state approximates a cluster state that is encoded into a larger number of physical qubits. The Hamiltonian we use is motivated by the projected entangled pair states, which provide a transparent mechanism to produce such approximate encoded cluster states on square or other lattice structures (as well as a variety of other…
We describe criteria for implementation of quantum computation in qudits. A qudit is a d-dimensional system whose Hilbert space is spanned by states |0>, |1>,... |d-1>. An important earlier work of Mathukrishnan and Stroud [1] describes how to exactly simulate an arbitrary unitary on multiple qudits using a 2d-1 parameter family of single qudit and two qudit gates. Their technique is based on the spectral decomposition of unitaries. Here we generalize this argument to show that exact universality follows given a discrete set of single qudit Hamiltonians and one two-qudit Hamiltonian. The techn…
Spin models are widely studied in the natural sciences, from investigating magnetic materials in condensed matter physics to studying neural networks. Previous work has demonstrated that there exist simple classical spin models that are universal: they can replicate -- in a precise and rigorous sense -- the complete physics of any other classical spin model, to any desired accuracy. However, all previously known universal models break translational invariance. In this paper we show that there exist translationally invariant universal models. Our main result is an explicit construction of a tra…
Energy gap, the difference between the energy of the ground state of a given Hamiltonian and the energy of its first excited state, is a parameter of a critical importance in analysis of phase transitions and adiabatic quantum computation. We present a concrete technique to determine the upper bound for the energy gap of a Hamiltonian $H_0$ based on properties of the set of expectation values of $H_0$ and an additional auxiliary Hamiltonian $V$. This formalism can be applied to obtain an effective criterion of gaplessness, which we illustrate with a concrete example of the XY model -- a physic…
When can a quantum system of finite dimension be used to simulate another quantum system of finite dimension? What restricts the capacity of one system to simulate another? In this paper we complete the program of studying what simulations can be done with entangling many-qudit Hamiltonians and local unitary control. By entangling we mean that every qudit is coupled to every other qudit, at least indirectly. We demonstrate that the only class of finite-dimensional entangling Hamiltonians that aren't universal for simulation is the class of entangling Hamiltonians on qubits whose Pauli operator…
Stabilizer code quantum Hamiltonians have been introduced with the intention of physically realizing a quantum memory because of their resilience to decoherence. In order to analyze their finite temperature thermodynamics, we show how to generically solve their partition function using duality techniques. By unveiling each model's universality class and effective dimension, insights may be gained on their finite temperature dynamics and robustness. Our technique is demonstrated in particular on the 4D Toric Code and Haah's Code -- we find that the former falls into the 4D Ising universality cl…
In some of the earliest work on quantum mechanical computers, Feynman showed how to implement universal quantum computation by the dynamics of a time-independent Hamiltonian. I show that this remains possible even if the Hamiltonian is restricted to be a sparse matrix with all entries equal to 0 or 1, i.e., the adjacency matrix of a low-degree graph. Thus quantum walk can be regarded as a universal computational primitive, with any desired quantum computation encoded entirely in some underlying graph. The main idea of the construction is to implement quantum gates by scattering processes.
We show how one can implement any local quantum gate on specific qubits in an array of qubits by carrying adiabatically a Hamiltonian around a closed loop. We find the exact form of the loop and the Hamiltonian for implementing general one and two qubits gates. Our method is analytical and is not based on numerical search in the space of all loops.
We construct a Hamiltonian whose dynamics simulate the dynamics of every other Hamiltonian up to exponentially long times in the system size. The Hamiltonian is time-independent, local, one-dimensional, and translation invariant. As a consequence, we show (under plausible computational complexity assumptions) that the circuit complexity of the unitary dynamics under this Hamiltonian grows steadily with time up to an exponential value in system size. This result makes progress on a recent conjecture by Susskind, in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, that the time evolution of the thermo…
A projective measurement of energy (PME) on a quantum system is a quantum measurement, determined by the Hamiltonian of the system. PME protocols exist when the Hamiltonian is given in advance. Unknown Hamiltonians can be identified by quantum tomography, but the time cost to achieve a given accuracy increases exponentially with the size of the quantum system. In this letter, we improve the time cost by adapting quantum phase estimation, an algorithm designed for computational problems, to measurements on physical systems. We present a PME protocol without quantum tomography for Hamiltonians w…
We show how to perform universal adiabatic quantum computation using a Hamiltonian which describes a set of particles with local interactions on a two-dimensional grid. A single parameter in the Hamiltonian is adiabatically changed as a function of time to simulate the quantum circuit. We bound the eigenvalue gap above the unique groundstate by mapping our model onto the ferromagnetic XXZ chain with kink boundary conditions; the gap of this spin chain was computed exactly by Koma and Nachtergaele using its $q$-deformed version of SU(2) symmetry. We also discuss a related time-independent Hamil…
It is fundamental to view unitary braiding operators describing topological entanglements as universal quantum gates for quantum computation. This paper derives a unitary solution of the Quantum Yang--Baxter equation via Yang--Baxterization and constructs the Hamiltonian responsible for the time-evolution of the unitary braiding operator.
What interactions are sufficient to simulate arbitrary quantum dynamics in a composite quantum system? It has been shown that all two-body Hamiltonian evolutions can be simulated using \emph{any} fixed two-body entangling $n$-qubit Hamiltonian and fast local unitaries. By \emph{entangling} we mean that every qubit is coupled to every other qubit, if not directly, then indirectly via intermediate qubits. We extend this study to the case where interactions may involve more than two qubits at a time. We find necessary and sufficient conditions for an arbitrary $n$-qubit Hamiltonian to be \emph{dy…
Here is discussed the Hamiltonian approach to construction of deterministic universal (in approximate sense) programmable quantum circuits with qubits or any other quantum systems with dimension of Hilbert space is $n \ge 2$.
We characterise a model of universal quantum computation where the register (computational) qubits are controlled by ancillary qubits, using only a single fixed interaction between register and ancillary qubits. No additional access is required to the computational register and the dynamics of both the register and ancilla are unitary. This scheme is inspired by the measurement-based ancilla-driven quantum computation of Anders et al. [PRA 82, 020301(R), 2010], but does not require measurements of the ancillas, and in this respect is similar to the original gate based model of quantum computat…
We prove that the theorems of TDDFT can be applied to a class of qubit Hamiltonians that are universal for quantum computation. The theorems of TDDFT applied to universal Hamiltonians imply that single-qubit expectation values can be used as the basic variables in quantum computation and information theory, rather than wavefunctions. From a practical standpoint this opens the possibility of approximating observables of interest in quantum computations directly in terms of single-qubit quantities (i.e. as density functionals). Additionally, we also demonstrate that TDDFT provides an exact presc…
Universal quantum computation on decoherence-free subspaces and subsystems (DFSs) is examined with particular emphasis on using only physically relevant interactions. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of decoherence-free (noiseless) subsystems in the Markovian regime is derived here for the first time. A stabilizer formalism for DFSs is then developed which allows for the explicit understanding of these in their dual role as quantum error correcting codes. Conditions for the existence of Hamiltonians whose induced evolution always preserves a DFS are derived within this st…
This arXiv repository is a bundle of two closely related papers. Abstract of the first paper: In systems governed by "chaotic" local Hamiltonians, we conjecture the universality of eigenstate entanglement (defined as the average entanglement entropy of all eigenstates) by proposing an exact formula for its dependence on the subsystem size. This formula is derived from an analytical argument based on a plausible assumption, and is supported by numerical simulations. Abstract of the second paper: In systems governed by chaotic local Hamiltonians, the first paper conjectured the universality of t…
We consider environment induced decoherence of quantum superpositions to mixtures in the limit in which that process is much faster than any competing one generated by the Hamiltonian $H_{\rm sys}$ of the isolated system. While the golden rule then does not apply we can discard $H_{\rm sys}$. By allowing for simultaneous couplings to different reservoirs, we reveal decoherence as a universal short-time phenomenon independent of the character of the system as well as the bath and of the basis the superimposed states are taken from. We discuss consequences for the classical behavior of the macro…
We show how to perform universal Hamiltonian and adiabatic computing using a time-independent Hamiltonian on a 2D grid describing a system of hopping particles which string together and interact to perform the computation. In this construction, the movement of one particle is controlled by the presence or absence of other particles, an effective quantum field effect transistor that allows the construction of controlled-NOT and controlled-rotation gates. The construction translates into a model for universal quantum computation with time-independent 2-qubit ZZ and XX+YY interactions on an (almo…
The mathematical problem of localizing modular functors to neighborhoods of points is shown to be closely related to the physical problem of engineering a local Hamiltonian for a computationally universal quantum medium. For genus $=0$ surfaces, such a local Hamiltonian is mathematically defined. Braiding defects of this medium implements a representation associated to the Jones polynomial and this representation is known to be universal for quantum computation.
We introduce a simple yet versatile protocol to inverse engineer the time-dependent Hamiltonian in two- and three level systems. In the protocol, by utilizing a universal SU(2) transformation, a given speedup goal can be obtained with large freedom to select the control parameters. As an illustration example, the protocol is applied to perform population transfer between nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. Numerical simulation shows that the speed of the present protocol is fast compared with that of the adiabatic process. Moreover, the protocol is also tolerant to decoherence and experi…
Here we consider the power of a line of quantum particles under a nearest-neighbor 2-local Hamiltonian. Currently, it has been shown that 8-state particles are sufficient for universal adiabatic computing. We improve this result to show that 7-state particles are sufficient.
We show that, for even n, evolving n qubits according to a simple Hamiltonian can be used to exactly implement an (n+1)-qubit parity gate, which is equivalent in constant depth to an (n+1)-qubit fanout gate. We also observe that evolving the Hamiltonian for three qubits results in an inversion-on-three-way-equality gate, which together with single-qubit operations is universal for quantum computation.
Blindness is a desirable feature in delegated computation. In the classical setting, blind computations protect the data or even the program run by a server. In the quantum regime, blind computing may also enable testing computational or other quantum properties of the server system. Here we propose a scheme for universal blind quantum computation using a quantum simulator capable of emulating Heisenberg-like Hamiltonians. Our scheme is inspired by the central spin Hamiltonian in which a single spin controls dynamics of a number of bath spins. We show how, by manipulating this spin, a client t…
Quantum computation can be achieved by preparing an appropriate initial product state of qudits and then letting it evolve under a fixed Hamiltonian. The readout is made by measurement on individual qudits at some later time. This approach is called the Hamiltonian quantum computation and it includes, for example, the continuous-time quantum cellular automata and the universal quantum walk. We consider one spatial dimension and study the compromise between the locality $k$ and the local Hilbert space dimension $d$. For geometrically 2-local (i.e., $k=2$), it is known that $d=8$ is already suff…
We investigate the power of quantum systems for the simulation of Hamiltonian time evolutions on a cubic lattice under the constraint of translational invariance. Given a set of translationally invariant local Hamiltonians and short range interactions we determine time evolutions which can and those that can not be simulated. Whereas for general spin systems no finite universal set of generating interactions is shown to exist, universality turns out to be generic for quadratic bosonic and fermionic nearest-neighbor interactions when supplemented by all translationally invariant on-site Hamilto…
