The recent proposal (M Planat and M Kibler, Preprint 0807.3650 [quantph]) of representing Clifford quantum gates in terms of unitary reflections is revisited. In this essay, the geometry of a Clifford group G is expressed as a BN-pair, i.e. a pair of subgroups B and N that generate G, is such that intersection H = B \cap N is normal in G, the group W = N/H is a Coxeter group and two extra axioms are satisfied by the double cosets acting on B. The BN-pair used in this decomposition relies on the swap and match gates already introduced for classically simulating quantum circuits (R Jozsa and A Miyake, Preprint arXiv:0804.4050 [quant-ph]). The two- and three-qubit steps are related to the configuration with 27 lines on a smooth cubic surface.
With the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) encoding, Clifford gates and error correction can be carried out using simple Gaussian operations. Still, non-Clifford gates, required for universality, require non-Gaussian elements. In their original proposal, GKP suggested a particularly simple method of using a single application of the cubic phase gate to perform the logical non-Clifford T-gate. Here we show that this cubic phase gate approach performs extraordinarily poorly, even for arbitrarily large amounts of squeezing in the GKP state. Thus, contrary to common belief, the cubic phase gate is n…
A popular universal gate set for quantum computing with qubits is Clifford+T, as this can be readily implemented on many fault-tolerant architectures. For qutrits, there is an equivalent T gate, that, like its qubit analogue, makes Clifford+T approximately universal, is injectable by a magic state, and supports magic state distillation. However, it was claimed that a better gate set for qutrits might be Clifford+R, where R=diag(1,1,-1) is the metaplectic gate, as certain protocols and gates could more easily be implemented using the R gate than the T gate. In this paper we show that when we ha…
In this work, we introduce a new circuit optimization technique to reduce the number of T gates in Clifford+T circuits by treating T gates conjugated by Clifford gates as $\fracπ{4}$-rotations around Pauli operators. The tested benchmarks shows up to $71.43\%$ and an average $42.67\%$ reduction in T-count, both surpass the best performance reported. The worst case complexity of our algorithm is $O(nk^2)$ where $n$ is the number of qubits and $k$ is the number of T gates in the original Clifford+T circuit.
The Clifford hierarchy is a set of gates that appears in the theory of fault-tolerant quantum computation, but its precise structure remains elusive. We give a complete characterization of the diagonal gates in the Clifford hierarchy for prime-dimensional qudits. They turn out to be $p^{m}$-th roots of unity raised to polynomial functions of the basis state to which they are applied, and we determine which level of the Clifford hierarchy a given gate sits in based on $m$ and the degree of the polynomial.
For a number of useful quantum circuits, qudit constructions have been found which reduce resource requirements compared to the best known or best possible qubit construction. However, many of the necessary qutrit gates in these constructions have never been explicitly and efficiently constructed in a fault-tolerant manner. We show how to exactly and unitarily construct any qutrit multiple-controlled Clifford+T unitary using just Clifford+T gates and without using ancillae. The T-count to do so is polynomial in the number of controls $k$, scaling as $O(k^{3.585})$. With our results we can cons…
In this paper is shown an application of Clifford algebras to the construction of computationally universal sets of quantum gates for $n$-qubit systems. It is based on the well-known application of Lie algebras together with the especially simple commutation law for Clifford algebras, which states that all basic elements either commute or anticommute.
We explore the implementation of pseudo-random single-qubit rotations and multi-qubit pseudo-random circuits constructed only from Clifford gates and the T-gate, a phase rotation of pi/4. Such a gate set would be appropriate for computations performed in a fault tolerant setting. For single-qubit rotations the distribution of parameters found for unitaries constructed from Clifford plus T quickly approaches that of random rotations and require significantly fewer gates than the construction of arbitrary single-qubit rotations. For Clifford plus T pseudo-random circuits we find an exponential c…
We show that qubit stabilizer states can be represented by non-negative quasi-probability distributions associated with a Wigner-Weyl-Moyal formalism where Clifford gates are positive state-independent maps. This is accomplished by generalizing the Wigner-Weyl-Moyal formalism to three generators instead of two---producing an exterior, or Grassmann, algebra---which results in Clifford group gates for qubits that act as a permutation on the finite Weyl phase space points naturally associated with stabilizer states. As a result, a non-negative probability distribution can be associated with each …
Hardware efficient transpilation of quantum circuits to a quantum devices native gateset is essential for the execution of quantum algorithms on noisy quantum computers. Typical quantum devices utilize a gateset with a single two-qubit Clifford entangling gate per pair of coupled qubits, however, in some applications access to a non-Clifford two-qubit gate can result in more optimal circuit decompositions and also allows more flexibility in optimizing over noise. We demonstrate calibration of a low error non-Clifford Controlled-$\fracπ{2}$ phase (CS) gate on a cloud based IBM Quantum computing…
Clifford gates play a role in the optimisation of Clifford+T circuits. Reducing the count and the depth of Clifford gates, as well as the optimal scheduling of T gates, influence the hardware and the time costs of executing quantum circuits. This work focuses on circuits protected by the surface quantum error-correcting code. The result of compiling a quantum circuit for the surface code is called a topological assembly. We use queuing theory to model a part of the compiled assemblies, evaluate the models, and make the empiric observation that at least for certain Clifford+T circuits (e.g. add…
The Clifford group is the set of gates generated by the controlled not gates, the Hadamard gate and the P={{1,0},{0,i}} gate. We will say that a n-qubit state is a Clifford state if it can be prepared using Clifford gates. In this paper we study the set of all 4-qubit Clifford states. We prove that there are 293760 states and their entanglement entropy must be either 0, 2/3, 1, 4/3 and 5/3. We also show that any pair of these states can be connected using local gates and at most 3 CNOT gates. We achieve this by splitting the 293760 states into 18 groups where each pair of states in a group can…
Fault-tolerant quantum computation is a basic problem in quantum computation, and teleportation is one of the main techniques in this theory. Using teleportation on stabilizer codes, the most well-known quantum codes, Pauli gates and Clifford operators can be applied fault-tolerantly. Indeed, this technique can be generalized for an extended set of gates, the so called ${\mathcal{C}}_k$ hierarchy gates, introduced by Gottesman and Chuang (Nature, 402, 390-392). ${\mathcal{C}}_k$ gates are a generalization of Clifford operators, but our knowledge of these sets is not as rich as our knowledge of…
We show that the Clifford gates and stabilizer circuits in the quantum computing literature, which admit efficient classical simulation, are equivalent to affine signatures under a unitary condition. The latter is a known class of tractable functions under the Holant framework.
Topological subsystem color codes add to the advantages of topological codes an important feature: error tracking only involves measuring 2-local operators in a two dimensional setting. Unfortunately, known methods to compute with them were highly unpractical. We give a mechanism to implement all Clifford gates by code deformation in a planar setting. In particular, we use twist braiding and express its effects in terms of certain colored Majorana operators.
We give a general proof for the existence and realizability of Clifford gates in the Ising topological quantum computer. We show that all quantum gates that can be implemented by braiding of Ising anyons are Clifford gates. We find that the braiding gates for two qubits exhaust the entire two-qubit Clifford group. Analyzing the structure of the Clifford group for n \geq 3 qubits we prove that the the image of the braid group is a non-trivial subgroup of the Clifford group so that not all Clifford gates could be implemented by braiding in the Ising topological quantum computation scheme. We als…
Peres/Mermin arguments about no-hidden variables in quantum mechanics are used for displaying a pair (R, S) of entangling Clifford quantum gates, acting on two qubits. From them, a natural unitary representation of Coxeter/Weyl groups W(D5) and W(F4) emerges, which is also reflected into the splitting of the n-qubit Clifford group Cn into dipoles C$\pm$n . The union of the three-qubit real Clifford group C+ 3 and the Toffoli gate ensures a orthogonal representation of the Weyl/Coxeter group W(E8), and of its relatives. Other concepts involved are complex reflection groups, BN pairs, unitary gr…
Quantum Accreditation with Non-Clifford Two-qubit Gates
School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学信息学院）；Department of Physics, University of Warwick（华威大学物理系）；National Quantum Computing Centre, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory（拉瑟福德阿普尔顿实验室国家量子计算中心）
Randomized benchmarking is a widely used experimental technique to characterize the average error of quantum operations. Benchmarking procedures that scale to enable characterization of $n$-qubit circuits rely on efficient procedures for manipulating those circuits and, as such, have been limited to subgroups of the Clifford group. However, universal quantum computers require additional, non-Clifford gates to approximate arbitrary unitary transformations. We define a scalable randomized benchmarking procedure over $n$-qubit unitary matrices that correspond to protected non-Clifford gates for a…
We generalize an efficient exact synthesis algorithm for single-qubit unitaries over the Clifford+T gate set which was presented by Kliuchnikov, Maslov and Mosca. Their algorithm takes as input an exactly synthesizable single-qubit unitary--one which can be expressed without error as a product of Clifford and T gates--and outputs a sequence of gates which implements it. The algorithm is optimal in the sense that the length of the sequence, measured by the number of T gates, is smallest possible. In this paper, for each positive even integer $n$ we consider the "Clifford-cyclotomic" gate set co…
We developed a general framework for synthesizing target gates by using a finite set of basic gates, which is a crucial step in quantum compilation. When approximating a gate in SU($n$), a naive brute-force search requires a computational complexity of $O(1/\varepsilon^{(n^2 - 1)})$ to achieve an approximation with error $\varepsilon$. In contrast, by using our method, the complexity can be reduced to $O(-n^2 \log\varepsilon/\varepsilon^{((n^2 - 1)/2)})$. This method requires almost no assumptions and can be applied to a variety of gate sets, including Clifford+$T$ and Clifford+$V$. Further, w…
The design of a four-dimensional toric code is explored with the goal of finding a lattice capable of implementing a logical $\mathsf{CCCZ}$ gate transversally. The established lattice is the octaplex tessellation, which is a regular tessellation of four-dimensional Euclidean space whose underlying 4-cell is the octaplex, or hyper-diamond. This differs from the conventional 4D toric code lattice, based on the hypercubic tessellation, which is symmetric with respect to logical $X$ and $Z$ and only allows for the implementation of a transversal Clifford gate. This work further develops the estab…
Teleportation is a crucial element in fault-tolerant quantum computation and a complete understanding of its capacity is very important for the practical implementation of optimal fault-tolerant architectures. It is known that stabilizer codes support a natural set of gates that can be more easily implemented by teleportation than any other gates. These gates belong to the so called $\mathcal{C}_k$ hierarchy introduced by Gottesman and Chuang (Nature \textbf{402}, 390). Moreover, a subset of $\mathcal{C}_k$ gates, called semi-Clifford operations, can be implemented by an even simpler architect…
We present a planar surface-code-based scheme for fault-tolerant quantum computation which eliminates the time overhead of single-qubit Clifford gates, and implements long-range multi-target CNOT gates with a time overhead that scales only logarithmically with the control-target separation. This is done by replacing hardware operations for single-qubit Clifford gates with a classical tracking protocol. Inter-qubit communication is added via a modified lattice surgery protocol that employs twist defects of the surface code. The long-range multi-target CNOT gates facilitate magic state distillat…
Surface and color codes are two forms of topological quantum error correction in two spatial dimensions with complementary properties. Surface codes have lower-depth error detection circuits and well-developed decoders to interpret and correct errors, while color codes have transversal Clifford gates and better code efficiency in the number of physical qubits needed to achieve a given code distance. A formal equivalence exists between color codes and folded surface codes, but it does not guarantee the transferability of any of these favorable properties. However, the equivalence does imply the…
We use our Clifford algebra technique, that is nilpotents and projectors which are binomials of the Clifford algebra objects $γ^a$ with the property $\{γ^a,γ^b\}_+ = 2 η^{ab}$, for representing quantum gates and quantum algorithms needed in quantum computers in an elegant way. We identify $n$-qubits with spinor representations of the group SO(1,3) for a system of $n$ spinors. Representations are expressed in terms of products of projectors and nilpotents. An algorithm for extracting a particular information out of a general superposition of $2^n$ qubit states is presented. It reproduces for a …
In a continuous-variable optical system, the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) qubit is a promising candidate for fault-tolerant quantum computation. To implement non-Clifford operations on GKP qubits, non-Gaussian operations are required. In this context, the implementation of a cubic phase gate by combining nonlinear feedforward with ancillary states has been widely researched. Recently, however, it is pointed out that the cubic phase gate is not the most suitable for non-Clifford operations on GKP qubits. In this work, we show that we can achieve linear optical implementation of non-Clifford …
Quantum gates in experiment are inherently prone to errors that need to be characterized before they can be corrected. Full characterization via quantum process tomography is impractical and often unnecessary. For most practical purposes, it is enough to estimate more general quantities such as the average fidelity. Here we use a unitary 2-design and twirling protocol for efficiently estimating the average fidelity of Clifford gates, to certify a 7-qubit entangling gate in a nuclear magnetic resonance quantum processor. Compared with more than $10^8$ experiments required by full process tomogr…
We study single-qutrit gates composed of Clifford and $T$ gates, using the qutrit version of the $T$ gate proposed by Howard and Vala. We propose a normal form for single-qutrit gates analogous to the Matsumoto-Amano normal form for qubits. We prove that the normal form is optimal with respect to the number of $T$ gates used and that any string of qutrit Clifford+$T$ operators can be put into this normal form in polynomial time. We also prove that this form is unique and provide an algorithm for exact synthesis of any single qutrit Clifford+$T$ operator.
We show that the class QMA does not change even if we restrict Arthur's computing ability to only Clifford gate operations (plus classical XOR gate). The idea is to use the fact that the preparation of certain single-qubit states, so called magic states, plus any Clifford gate operations are universal for quantum computing. If Merlin is honest, he sends the witness plus magic states to Arthur. If Merlin is malicious, he might send other states to Arthur, but Arthur can verify the correctness of magic states by himself. We also generalize the result to QIP[3]: we show that the class QIP[3] does…
Clifford circuits are insufficient for universal quantum computation or creating $t$-designs with $t\ge 4$. While the entanglement entropy is not a telltale of this insufficiency, the entanglement spectrum is: the entanglement levels are Poisson-distributed for circuits restricted to the Clifford gate-set, while the levels follow Wigner-Dyson statistics when universal gates are used. In this paper we show, using finite-size scaling analysis of different measures of level spacing statistics, that in the thermodynamic limit, inserting a single T $(π/8)$ gate in the middle of a random Clifford ci…
Fault-tolerant, error-corrected quantum computation is commonly acknowledged to be crucial to the realisation of large-scale quantum algorithms that could lead to extremely impactful scientific or commercial results. Achieving a universal set of quantum gate operations in a fault-tolerant error-corrected framework suffers from a `conservation of unpleasantness'. In general, no matter what error correction technique is employed, there is always one element of a universal gate set that carries a significant resource overhead - either in physical qubits, computational time, or both. Specifically,…
Quantum Phase Estimation is one of the most useful quantum computing algorithms for quantum chemistry and as such, significant effort has been devoted to designing efficient implementations. In this article, we introduce TFermion, a library designed to estimate the T-gate cost of such algorithms, for an arbitrary molecule. As examples of usage, we estimate the T-gate cost of a few simple molecules and compare the same Taylorization algorithms using Gaussian and plane-wave basis.
We study two-qubit circuits over the Clifford+CS gate set, which consists of the Clifford gates together with the controlled-phase gate CS=diag(1,1,1,i). The Clifford+CS gate set is universal for quantum computation and its elements can be implemented fault-tolerantly in most error-correcting schemes through magic state distillation. Since non-Clifford gates are typically more expensive to perform in a fault-tolerant manner, it is often desirable to construct circuits that use few CS gates. In the present paper, we introduce an efficient and optimal synthesis algorithm for two-qubit Clifford+C…
The Gottesman-Knill theorem asserts that a quantum circuit composed of Clifford gates can be efficiently simulated on a classical computer. Here we revisit this theorem and extend it to quantum circuits composed of Clifford and T gates, where T is the single-qubit 45-degree phase shift. We assume that the circuit outputs a bit string x obtained by measuring some subset of w qubits. Two simulation tasks are considered: (1) computing the probability of a given output x, and (2) sampling x from the output probability distribution. It is shown that these tasks can be solved on a classical computer…
