Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:0806.4015 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Constructive quantum Shannon decomposition from Cartan involutions

Byron C. Drury, Peter J. Love

Published Sep 4, 2008• 37 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The work presented here extends upon the best known universal quantum circuit, the Quantum Shannon Decomposition proposed in [Vivek V. Shende, Stephen S. Bullock and Igor Markov, Synthesis of Quantum Logic Circuits, IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integr. Circuits Syst. 25 (6): 1000-1010 (2006)]. We obtain the basis of the circuit's design in a pair of Cartan decompositions. This insight gives a simple constructive algorithm for obtaining the Quantum Shannon Decomposition of a given unitary matrix in terms of the corresponding Cartan involutions.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/41/39/395305

Related papers

A new algorithm for producing quantum circuits using KAK decompositions

M.Y. Nakajima, Y. Kawano, Hiroshi Sekigawa

We provide a new algorithm that translates a unitary matrix into a quantum circuit according to the G=KAK theorem in Lie group theory. With our algorithm, any matrix decomposition corresponding to type-AIII KAK decompositions can be derived according to the given Cartan involution. Our algorithm contains, as its special cases, Cosine-Sine decomposition (CSD) and Khaneja-Glaser decomposition (KGD) in the sense that it derives the same quantum circuits as the ones obtained by them if we select suitable Cartan involutions and square root matrices. The selections of Cartan involutions for computing CSD and KGD will be shown explicitly. As an example, we show explicitly that our method can automatically reproduce the well-known efficient quantum circuit for the $n$-qubit quantum Fourier transform.

Quantum Information and Computation•Jan 1, 2006•49 citations

A new algorithm for producing quantum circuits using KAK decompositions

Yumi Nakajima A, Yasuhito Kawano, Hiroshi Sekigawa

We provide a new algorithm that translates a unitary matrix into a quantum circuit according to the G=KAK theorem in Lie group theory. With our algorithm, any matrix decomposition corresponding to type-AIII KAK decompositions can be derived according to the given Cartan involution. Our algorithm contains, as its special cases, Cosine-Sine decomposition (CSD) and Khaneja-Glaser decomposition (KGD) in the sense that it derives the same quantum circuits as the ones obtained by them if we select suitable Cartan involutions and square root matrices. The selections of Cartan involutions for computing CSD and KGD will be hown explicitly. As an example, we show explicitly that our method can automatically reproduce the well-known efficient quantum circuit for the n-qubit quantum Fourier transform.

arXiv:quant-ph/0509196•Sep 28, 2005•2 citations

Synthesis of quantum logic circuits

Vivek Shende, Stephen S. Bullock, Igor L. Markov

The pressure of fundamental limits on classical computation and the promise of exponential speedups from quantum effects have recently brought quantum circuits to the attention of the EDA community (Iwama et al., 2002; Shende et al., 2003; Bullock and Markov, 2003; Shende et al., 2004; Hung et al., 2004). We discuss efficient circuits to initialize quantum registers and implement generic quantum computations. Our techniques yield circuits that are twice as small as the best previously published technique. Moreover, a theoretical lower bound shows that our new circuits can be improved by at most a factor of two. Further, the circuits grow by at most a factor of nine under severe architectural restrictions.

Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC)•Jul 19, 2005•46 citations

Synthesis of quantum-logic circuits

Vivek Shende, Stephen S. Bullock, Igor L. Markov

The pressure of fundamental limits on classical computation and the promise of exponential speedups from quantum effects have recently brought quantum circuits (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A, Math. Phys. Sci., vol. 425, p. 73, 1989) to the attention of the electronic design automation community (Proc. 40th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conf., 2003), (Phys. Rev. A, At. Mol. Opt. Phy., vol. 68, p. 012318, 2003), (Proc. 41st Design Automation Conf., 2004), (Proc. 39th Design Automation Conf., 2002), (Proc. Design, Automation, and Test Eur., 2004), (Phys. Rev. A, At. Mol. Opt. Phy., vol. 69, p. 062321, 2004), (IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integr. Circuits Syst., vol. 22, p. 710, 2003). Efficient quantum-logic circuits that perform two tasks are discussed: 1) implementing generic quantum computations, and 2) initializing quantum registers. In contrast to conventional computing, the latter task is nontrivial because the state space of an n-qubit register is not finite and contains exponential superpositions of classical bitstrings. The proposed circuits are asymptotically optimal for respective tasks and improve earlier published results by at least a factor of 2. The circuits for generic quantum computation constructed by the algorithms are the most efficient known today in terms of the number of most expensive gates [quantum controlled-NOTs (CNOTs)]. They are based on an analog of the Shannon decomposition of Boolean functions and a new circuit block, called quantum multiplexor (QMUX), which generalizes several known constructions. A theoretical lower bound implies that the circuits cannot be improved by more than a factor of 2. It is additionally shown how to accommodate the severe architectural limitation of using only nearest neighbor gates, which is representative of current implementation technologies. This increases the number of gates by almost an order of magnitude, but preserves the asymptotic optimality of gate counts.

arXiv:quant-ph/0406176•IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems•May 12, 2006•678 citations

Cartan-Khaneja-Glaser decomposition of $SU(2^n)$ via involutive automorphisms

John A. Mora Rodríguez, Arthur C. R. Dutra, Henrique N. Sá Earp +1 more

We present a novel algorithm for performing the Cartan-Khaneja-Glaser decomposition of unitary matrices in $\mathrm{SU}\left(2^n\right)$, a critical task for efficient quantum circuit design. Building upon the approach introduced by Sá Earp and Pachos (2005), we overcome key limitations of their method, such as reliance on ill-defined matrix logarithms and the convergence issues of truncated Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff (BCH) series. Our reformulation leverages the algebraic structure of involutive automorphisms and symmetric Lie algebra decompositions to yield a stable and recursive factorization process. We provide a full Python implementation of the algorithm, available in an open-source repository, and validate its performance on matrices in $\mathrm{SU}(8)$ and $\mathrm{SU}(16)$ using random unitary benchmarks. The algorithm produces decompositions that are directly suited to practical quantum hardware, with factors that can be implemented near-optimally using standard gate sets.

arXiv:2509.05468•Pure and Applied Mathematics Quarterly•Jan 1, 2026•1 citation

Optimal synthesis of general multi-qutrit quantum computation

Gui‐Long Jiang, Wen‐Qiang Liu, Hai‐Rui Wei

Quantum circuits of a general quantum gate acting on multiple $d$-level quantum systems play a prominent role in multi-valued quantum computation. We first propose a new recursive Cartan decomposition of semi-simple unitary Lie group $U(3^n)$ (arbitrary $n$-qutrit gate). Note that the decomposition completely decomposes an n-qutrit gate into local and non-local operations. We design an explicit quantum circuit for implementing arbitrary two-qutrit gates, and the cost of our construction is 21 generalized controlled X (GCX) and controlled increment (CINC) gates less than the earlier best result of 26 GGXs. Moreover, we extend the program to the $n$-qutrit system, and the quantum circuit of generic $n$-qutrit gates contained $\frac{41}{96}\cdot3^{2n}-4\cdot3^{n-1}-(\frac{n^2}{2}+\frac{n}{4}-\frac{29}{32})$ GGXs and CINCs is presented. Such asymptotically optimal structure is the best known result so far.

arXiv:2310.11996•Oct 18, 2023•0 citations
The work presented here extends upon the best known universal quantum circuit, the Quantum Shannon Decomposition proposed in [Vivek V. Shende, Stephen S. Bullock and Igor Markov, Synthesis of Quantum Logic Circuits, IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integr. Circuits Syst. 25 (6): 1000-1010 (2006)]. We obtain the basis of the circuit's design in a pair of Cartan decompositions. This insight gives a simple constructive algorithm for obtaining the Quantum Shannon Decomposition of a given unitary matrix in terms of the corresponding Cartan involutions.
We provide a new algorithm that translates a unitary matrix into a quantum circuit according to the G=KAK theorem in Lie group theory. With our algorithm, any matrix decomposition corresponding to type-AIII KAK decompositions can be derived according to the given Cartan involution. Our algorithm contains, as its special cases, Cosine-Sine decomposition (CSD) and Khaneja-Glaser decomposition (KGD) in the sense that it derives the same quantum circuits as the ones obtained by them if we select suitable Cartan involutions and square root matrices. The selections of Cartan involutions for computing CSD and KGD will be shown explicitly. As an example, we show explicitly that our method can automatically reproduce the well-known efficient quantum circuit for the nnn-qubit quantum Fourier transform.
We provide a new algorithm that translates a unitary matrix into a quantum circuit according to the G=KAK theorem in Lie group theory. With our algorithm, any matrix decomposition corresponding to type-AIII KAK decompositions can be derived according to the given Cartan involution. Our algorithm contains, as its special cases, Cosine-Sine decomposition (CSD) and Khaneja-Glaser decomposition (KGD) in the sense that it derives the same quantum circuits as the ones obtained by them if we select suitable Cartan involutions and square root matrices. The selections of Cartan involutions for computing CSD and KGD will be hown explicitly. As an example, we show explicitly that our method can automatically reproduce the well-known efficient quantum circuit for the n-qubit quantum Fourier transform.
The pressure of fundamental limits on classical computation and the promise of exponential speedups from quantum effects have recently brought quantum circuits to the attention of the EDA community (Iwama et al., 2002; Shende et al., 2003; Bullock and Markov, 2003; Shende et al., 2004; Hung et al., 2004). We discuss efficient circuits to initialize quantum registers and implement generic quantum computations. Our techniques yield circuits that are twice as small as the best previously published technique. Moreover, a theoretical lower bound shows that our new circuits can be improved by at most a factor of two. Further, the circuits grow by at most a factor of nine under severe architectural restrictions.
The pressure of fundamental limits on classical computation and the promise of exponential speedups from quantum effects have recently brought quantum circuits (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A, Math. Phys. Sci., vol. 425, p. 73, 1989) to the attention of the electronic design automation community (Proc. 40th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conf., 2003), (Phys. Rev. A, At. Mol. Opt. Phy., vol. 68, p. 012318, 2003), (Proc. 41st Design Automation Conf., 2004), (Proc. 39th Design Automation Conf., 2002), (Proc. Design, Automation, and Test Eur., 2004), (Phys. Rev. A, At. Mol. Opt. Phy., vol. 69, p. 062321, 2004), (IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integr. Circuits Syst., vol. 22, p. 710, 2003). Efficient quantum-logic circuits that perform two tasks are discussed: 1) implementing generic quantum computations, and 2) initializing quantum registers. In contrast to conventional computing, the latter task is nontrivial because the state space of an n-qubit register is not finite and contains exponential superpositions of classical bitstrings. The proposed circuits are asymptotically optimal for respective tasks and improve earlier published results by at least a factor of 2. The circuits for generic quantum computation constructed by the algorithms are the most efficient known today in terms of the number of most expensive gates [quantum controlled-NOTs (CNOTs)]. They are based on an analog of the Shannon decomposition of Boolean functions and a new circuit block, called quantum multiplexor (QMUX), which generalizes several known constructions. A theoretical lower bound implies that the circuits cannot be improved by more than a factor of 2. It is additionally shown how to accommodate the severe architectural limitation of using only nearest neighbor gates, which is representative of current implementation technologies. This increases the number of gates by almost an order of magnitude, but preserves the asymptotic optimality of gate counts.
Cartan-Khaneja-Glaser decomposition of SU(2n)SU(2^n)SU(2n) via involutive automorphisms
We present a novel algorithm for performing the Cartan-Khaneja-Glaser decomposition of unitary matrices in SU(2n)\mathrm{SU}\left(2^n\right)SU(2n), a critical task for efficient quantum circuit design. Building upon the approach introduced by Sá Earp and Pachos (2005), we overcome key limitations of their method, such as reliance on ill-defined matrix logarithms and the convergence issues of truncated Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff (BCH) series. Our reformulation leverages the algebraic structure of involutive automorphisms and symmetric Lie algebra decompositions to yield a stable and recursive factorization process. We provide a full Python implementation of the algorithm, available in an open-source repository, and validate its performance on matrices in SU(8)\mathrm{SU}(8)SU(8) and SU(16)\mathrm{SU}(16)SU(16) using random unitary benchmarks. The algorithm produces decompositions that are directly suited to practical quantum hardware, with factors that can be implemented near-optimally using standard gate sets.
Quantum circuits of a general quantum gate acting on multiple ddd-level quantum systems play a prominent role in multi-valued quantum computation. We first propose a new recursive Cartan decomposition of semi-simple unitary Lie group U(3n)U(3^n)U(3n) (arbitrary nnn-qutrit gate). Note that the decomposition completely decomposes an n-qutrit gate into local and non-local operations. We design an explicit quantum circuit for implementing arbitrary two-qutrit gates, and the cost of our construction is 21 generalized controlled X (GCX) and controlled increment (CINC) gates less than the earlier best result of 26 GGXs. Moreover, we extend the program to the nnn-qutrit system, and the quantum circuit of generic nnn-qutrit gates contained 4196⋅32n−4⋅3n−1−(n22+n4−2932)\frac{41}{96}\cdot3^{2n}-4\cdot3^{n-1}-(\frac{n^2}{2}+\frac{n}{4}-\frac{29}{32})9641​⋅32n−4⋅3n−1−(2n2​+4n​−3229​) GGXs and CINCs is presented. Such asymptotically optimal structure is the best known result so far.