Any Clifford+T circuit can be controlled with constant T-depth overhead

Isaac H. Kim, Tuomas Laakkonen (Jan 01 2026).

Abstract: Since an n-qubit circuit consisting of CNOT gates can have up to $\Omega(n^2/\log{n})$ CNOT gates, it is natural to expect that $\Omega(n^2/\log{n})$ Toffoli gates are needed to apply a controlled version of such a circuit. We show that the Toffoli count can be reduced to at most n. The Toffoli depth can also be reduced to O(1), at the cost of 2n Toffoli gates, even without using any ancilla or measurement. In fact, using a measurement-based uncomputation, the Toffoli depth can be further reduced to 1. From this, we give two corollaries: any controlled Clifford circuit can be implemented with O(1) T-depth, and any Clifford+T circuit with T-depth D can be controlled with T-depth O(D), even without ancillas. As an application, we show how to catalyze a rotation by any angle up to precision $\epsilon$ in T-depth exactly 1 using a universal $\lceil\log_2(8/\epsilon)\rceil$-qubit catalyst state.

Arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.24982