We propose a scheme to generate holonomies using the Quantum Zeno effect, enabling logical unitary operations on quantum stabilizer codes purely through measurements. The quantum error-correcting code space is adiabatically rotated by measuring a succession of rotated stabilizer generators. When the rotation is sufficiently slow, the state remains confined to the instantaneous code space by the Zeno effect; otherwise, measurement-induced jumps can occur into a rotated orthogonal subspace. If the rotation completes a closed loop, the code state is transformed by a holonomy: a logical unitary transformation. We analytically derive the sequence of rotated stabilizer generators that produce a desired holonomy, and find the total time required to implement this procedure with a given success probability. If a measurement moves the state to the orthogonal subspace, we present a method to alter the path of the rotated observables to return the state either to the original code or the original error space with the desired holonomy; in the latter case, the holonomy is emulated. Finally, we establish conditions on the code and the measured observables that preserve the correctability of a given error set. When a code fails to meet the error-correcting conditions, our protocol can be applicable by augmenting the code with ancilla qubits.
Abelian and non-Abelian geometric phases, known as quantum holonomies, have attracted considerable attention in the past. Here, we show that it is possible to associate nonequivalent holonomies to discrete sequences of subspaces in a Hilbert space. We consider two such holonomies that arise naturally in interferometer settings. For sequences approximating smooth paths in the base (Grassmann) manifold, these holonomies both approach the standard holonomy. In the one-dimensional case the two types of holonomies are Abelian and coincide with Pancharatnam's geometric phase factor. The theory is illustrated with a model example of projective measurements involving angular momentum coherent states.
Quantum holonomies are investigated in different contexts. A geometric phase is proposed for decomposition dependent evolution, where each component of a given decomposition of a mixed state evolves independently. It is shown that this geometric phase only depends on the path traversed in the space of decompositions. A holonomy is associated to general paths of subspaces of a Hilbert space, both discrete and continuous. This opens up the possibility of constructing quantum holonomic gates in the open path setting. In the discrete case it is shown that it is possible to associate two distinct holonomies to a given path. Interferometric setups for measuring both holonomies are provided. It is further shown that there are cases when the holonomy is only partially defined. This has no counterpart in the Abelian setting. An operational interpretation of amplitudes of density operators is provided. This allows for a direct interferometric realization of Uhlmann's parallelity condition, and the possibility of measuring the Uhlmann holonomy for sequences of density operators. Off-diagonal geometric phases are generalized to the non-Abelian case. These off-diagonal holonomies are undefined for cyclic evolution, but must contain members of non-zero rank if all standard holonomies are undefined. Experimental setups for measuring the off-diagonal holonomies are proposed. The concept of nodal free geometric phases is introduced. These are constructed from gauge invariant quantities, but do not share the nodal point structure of geometric phases and off-diagonal geometric phases. An interferometric setup for measuring nodal free geometric phases is provided, and it is shown that these phases could be useful in geometric quantum computation. A holonomy associated to a sequence of quantum maps is introduced. It is shown that this holonomy is related to the Uhlmann holonomy. Explicit examples are provided to illustrate the general idea.
Holonomic quantum computation exploits a quantum state's nontrivial, matrix-valued geometric phase (holonomy) to perform fault-tolerant computation. Holonomies arising from systems where the Hamiltonian traces a continuous path through parameter space have been well researched. Discrete holonomies, on the other hand, where the state jumps from point to point in state space, have had little prior investigation. Using a sequence of incomplete projective measurements of the spin operator, we build an explicit approach to universal quantum computation. We show that quantum error correction codes integrate naturally in our scheme, providing a model for measurement-based quantum computation that combines the passive error resilience of holonomic quantum computation and active error correction techniques. In the limit of dense measurements we recover known continuous-path holonomies.
We study the possibility of performing quantum state reconstruction from a measurement record that is obtained as a sequence of expectation values of a Hermitian operator evolving under repeated application of a single random unitary map,
U0. We show that while this single-parameter orbit in operator space is not informationally complete, it can be used to yield surprisingly high-fidelity reconstruction. For a
d-dimensional Hilbert space with the initial observable in
su(d), the measurement record lacks information about a matrix subspace of dimension $\ensuremath{\geqslant}d\ensuremath{-}2$ out of the total dimension ${d}^{2}\ensuremath{-}1$. We determine the conditions on
U0 such that the bound is saturated, and show they are achieved by almost all pseudorandom unitary matrices. When we further impose the constraint that the physical density matrix must be positive, we obtain even higher fidelity than that predicted from the missing subspace. With prior knowledge that the state is pure, the reconstruction will be perfect (in the limit of vanishing noise) and for arbitrary mixed states, the fidelity is over
0.96, even for small
d, and reaching
F>0.99 for
d>9. We also study the implementation of this protocol based on the relationship between random matrices and quantum chaos. We show that the Floquet operator of the quantum kicked top provides a means of generating the required type of measurement record, with implications on the relationship between quantum chaos and information gain.
Unitary designs provide efficient substitutes for Haar-random unitaries in quantum information processing, randomized measurements, and many-body quantum dynamics. We propose a protocol based on time evolutions of a single chaotic Hamiltonian interleaved with unitary perturbations to generate unitary designs. We derive the frame potential of the resulting ensemble in terms of those of the intermediate ensemble. The intermediate ensemble need not itself be Haar random or exhibit Haar-level frame potentials, provided that its trace moments and frame-potential growth are sufficiently suppressed. The nontrivial Pauli set and the Clifford ensemble are simple examples, whereas ensembles whose cardinality does not grow with the Hilbert-space dimension generally fail. We further establish a frame-potential correspondence between multi-Hamiltonian temporal protocols and one-Hamiltonian protocols interleaved with repeated fixed trace-suppressed perturbations, showing that two perturbations suffice to recover Haar-level frame potentials. For local Hamiltonians, we derive a lower bound on the space--depth control resource, while more generally we establish a universal finite-window bound that constrains the required temporal sampling range. Together, these results identify complementary spatial and temporal resource requirements for perturbation-assisted randomness generation.