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arXiv:0706.0556 · Physical Review A

Random unitaries give quantum expanders

M. B. Hastings

Published Sep 13, 2007• 93 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show that randomly choosing the matrices in a completely positive map from the unitary group gives a quantum expander. We consider Hermitian and non-Hermitian cases, and we provide asymptotically tight bounds in the Hermitian case on the typical value of the second largest eigenvalue. The key idea is the use of Schwinger-Dyson equations from lattice gauge theory to efficiently compute averages over the unitary group.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.76.032315

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We show that randomly choosing the matrices in a completely positive map from the unitary group gives a quantum expander. We consider Hermitian and non-Hermitian cases, and we provide asymptotically tight bounds in the Hermitian case on the typical value of the second largest eigenvalue. The key idea is the use of Schwinger-Dyson equations from lattice gauge theory to efficiently compute averages over the unitary group.
We consider a random quantum channel obtained by taking a selection of ddd independent and Haar distributed NNN dimensional unitaries. We follow the argument of Hastings to bound the spectral gap in terms of eigenvalues and adapt it to give an exact estimate of the spectral gap in terms of singular values \cite{hastings2007random,harrow2007quantum}. This shows that we have constructed a random quantum expander in terms of both singular values and eigenvalues. The lower bound is an analog of the Alon-Boppana bound for ddd-regular graphs. The upper bound is obtained using Schwinger-Dyson equations.
We consider a random quantum channel obtained by taking a selection of [Formula: see text] independent and Haar distributed [Formula: see text]-dimensional unitaries. We follow the argument of Hastings to bound the spectral gap in terms of eigenvalues and adapt it to give an exact estimate of the spectral gap in terms of singular values [7, 8]. This shows that we have constructed a random quantum expander in terms of both singular values and eigenvalues. The lower bound is an analog of the Alon–Boppana bound for [Formula: see text]-regular graphs. The upper bound is obtained using Schwinger–Dyson equations.
We introduce the concept of quantum tensor product expanders. These generalize the concept of quantum expanders, which are quantum maps that are efficient randomizers and use only a small number of Kraus operators. Quantum tensor product expanders act on several copies of a given system, where the Kraus operators are tensor products of the Kraus operator on a single system. We begin with the classical case, and show that a classical two-copy expander can be used to produce a quantum expander. We then discuss the quantum case and give applications to the Solovay-Kitaev problem. We give probabilistic constructions in both classical and quantum cases, giving tight bounds on the expectation value of the largest nontrivial eigenvalue in the quantum case.
Abstract. In this study, we generate quantum channels with random Kraus operators to typically obtain almost twirling quantum channels and quantum expanders. To prove the concentration phenomena, we use matrix Bernstein’s inequality. In this way, our random models do not utilize Haar-distributed unitary matrices or Gaussian matrices. Rather, as in the preceding research, we use unitary t-designs to generate mixed tensor-product unitary channels acting on Cdt. Although our bounds in Schatten p-norm are valid only for 1 ≤p≤ 2, we show that they are typically quantum ϵ-twirling channels with the tail bound proportional to 1/poly(dt), while such bounds were previously constants. The number of required Kraus operators was also improved by powers of logdandt, to be proportional todtlogd/ϵ2. Such random quantum channels are also typically quantum expanders, but the number of Kraus operators must grow proportionally totlogdin our case. Finally, a new non-unital model of super-operators generated by bounded and isotropic random Kraus operators was introduced, which can be typically rectified to yield almost randomizing quantum channels and quantum expanders.
This thesis discusses the young fields of quantum pseudo-randomness and quantum learning algorithms. We present techniques for derandomising algorithms to decrease randomness resource requirements and improve efficiency. One key object in doing this is a k-design, which is a distribution on the unitary group whose kth moments match those of the unitarily invariant Haar measure. We show that for a natural model of a random quantum circuit, the distribution of random circuits quickly converges to a 2-design. We then present an efficient unitary k-design construction for any k, provided the number of qubits n satisfies k = O(n/log n). In doing this, we provide an efficient construction of a quantum tensor product expander, which is a generalisation of a quantum expander which in turn generalises classical expanders. We then discuss applications of k-designs. We show that they can be used to improve the efficiency of many existing algorithms and protocols and also find new applications to derandomising large deviation bounds. In particular, we show that many large deviation bound results for Haar random unitaries carry over to k-designs for k = poly(n). In the second part of the thesis, we present some learning and testing algorithms for the Clifford group. We find an optimal algorithm for identifying an unknown Clifford operation. We also give an algorithm to test if an unknown operation is close to a Clifford or far from every Clifford.
Unitary TTT-designs play an important role in quantum information, with diverse applications in quantum algorithms, benchmarking, tomography, and communication. Until now, the most efficient construction of unitary TTT-designs for nnn-qudit systems has been via random local quantum circuits, which have been shown to converge to approximate TTT-designs in the diamond norm using O(T5+o(1)n2)O(T^{5+o(1)} n^2)O(T5+o(1)n2) quantum gates. In this work, we provide a new construction of TTT-designs via random matrix theory using O~(T2n2)\tilde{O}(T^2 n^2)O~(T2n2) quantum gates. Our construction leverages two key ideas. First, in the spirit of central limit theorems, we approximate the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE) by an i.i.d. sum of random Hermitian matrices. Second, we show that the product of just two exponentiated GUE matrices is already approximately Haar random. Thus, multiplying two exponentiated sums over rather simple random matrices yields a unitary TTT-design, via Hamiltonian simulation. A central feature of our proof is a new connection between the polynomial method in quantum query complexity and the large-dimension (NNN) expansion in random matrix theory. In particular, we show that the polynomial method provides exponentially improved bounds on the high moments of certain random matrix ensembles, without requiring intricate Weingarten calculations. In doing so, we define and solve a new type of moment problem on the unit circle, asking whether a finite number of equally weighted points, corresponding to eigenvalues of unitary matrices, can reproduce a given set of moments.