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arXiv:1512.06132 · Quantum Information and Computation

Quantum circuits for qubit fusion

Jonathan E. Moussa

Published Oct 1, 2016• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We consider four-dimensional qudits as qubit pairs and their qudit Pauli operators as qubit Clifford operators. This introduces a nesting, C^2_1 belong to C^4_2 belong to C^2_3 , where Cmn is the nth level of the m-dimensional qudit Clifford hierarchy. If we can convert between logical qubits and qudits, then qudit Clifford operators are qubit non-Clifford operators. Conversion is achieved by qubit fusion and qudit fission using stabilizer circuits that consume a resource state. This resource is a fused qubit stabilizer state with a faulttolerant state preparation using stabilizer circuits.

DOI
10.26421/qic16.13-14-3

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We consider four-dimensional qudits as qubit pairs and their qudit Pauli operators as qubit Clifford operators. This introduces a nesting, C^2_1 belong to C^4_2 belong to C^2_3 , where Cmn is the nth level of the m-dimensional qudit Clifford hierarchy. If we can convert between logical qubits and qudits, then qudit Clifford operators are qubit non-Clifford operators. Conversion is achieved by qubit fusion and qudit fission using stabilizer circuits that consume a resource state. This resource is a fused qubit stabilizer state with a faulttolerant state preparation using stabilizer circuits.
The Clifford hierarchy of unitary operators is a foundational concept for universal quantum computation. It was introduced to show that universal quantum computation can be realized via quantum teleportation, given access to certain standard resources. While the full structure of the hierarchy is still not understood, Cui et al. [S. X. Cui et al., Phys. Rev. A 95, 012329 (2017)] recently described the structure of diagonal unitaries in the hierarchy. They considered diagonal unitaries whose action on a computational basis qudit state is described by a 2kth{2}^{k}\mathrm{th}2kth root of unity raised to some polynomial function of the state, and they established the level of such unitaries in the hierarchy as a function of kkk and the degree of the polynomial. For qubit systems, we consider kthk\mathrm{th}kth-level diagonal unitaries that can be described just by quadratic forms of the state over the ring Z2k{\mathbb{Z}}_{{2}^{k}}Z2k​ of integers modulo 2k{2}^{k}2k. The quadratic forms involve symmetric matrices over Z2k{\mathbb{Z}}_{{2}^{k}}Z2k​ that can be used to efficiently describe all two-local and certain higher locality diagonal gates in the hierarchy. We also provide explicit algebraic descriptions of their action on Pauli matrices, which establishes a natural recursion to diagonal unitaries from lower levels. The result involves symplectic matrices over Z2k{\mathbb{Z}}_{{2}^{k}}Z2k​ and hence our perspective unifies a subgroup of diagonal gates in the Clifford hierarchy with the binary symplectic framework for gates in the Clifford group. We augment our description with simple examples for certain standard gates. In addition to demonstrating structure, these formulas might prove useful in applications such as (i) classical simulation of quantum circuits, especially via the stabilizer rank approach, (ii) synthesis of logical non-Clifford unitaries, specifically alternatives to expensive magic state distillation, and (iii) decomposition of arbitrary unitaries beyond the Clifford+T\mathrm{Clifford}+TClifford+T set of gates, perhaps leading to shorter depth circuits. Our results suggest that some nondiagonal gates in the hierarchy might also be understood by generalizing other binary symplectic matrices to integer rings.
Bravyi and Gosset [S. Bravyi and D. Gosset, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 250501 (2016)] recently gave classical simulation algorithms for quantum circuits dominated by Clifford operations. These algorithms scale exponentially with the number of TTT gates in the circuit, but polynomially in the number of qubits and Clifford operations. Here we extend their algorithm to qudits of odd prime dimension. We generalize their approximate stabilizer rank method for weak simulation to qudits and obtain the scaling of the approximate stabilizer rank with the number of single-qudit magic states. We also relate the canonical form of qudit stabilizer states to Gauss sum evaluations and give an O(n3)O({n}^{3})O(n3) algorithm for calculating the inner product of two nnn-qudit stabilizer states.
Recent work has shown that quantum double models can be used to circumvent the Bravyi-Koenig bound. In particular, this is achieved through code-switching protocols in which non-Pauli stabilizer phases appear as intermediate codes. We introduce the XCd(k)X\mathcal C^{(k)}_dXCd(k)​ stabilizer formalism, which generalizes the Pauli stabilizer formalism by combining Pauli-XXX operators with diagonal operators drawn from a fixed level kkk of the Clifford hierarchy on prime-dimensional qudits. This yields a natural class of beyond-Pauli stabilizer models, including many twisted quantum double phases. We classify a large class of these XCd(k)X\mathcal C^{(k)}_dXCd(k)​ stabilizer states, showing that they are uniform superpositions over affine-linear subspaces with diagonal phases. In particular, when the stabilizers of a state require operators from level kkk of the Clifford hierarchy, we show that the diagonal gates required to produce the phases in the wavefunction sit one level higher. We further show that every 2D twisted quantum double Dω(Zpn){\cal D}^ω(\mathbb{Z}_p^n)Dω(Zpn​) with ωωω a product of type-III cocycles and ppp an odd prime admits a realization using only Clifford (k=2k=2k=2) stabilizers, and we conjecture that phases where ωωω contains a type-I or type-II cocycle require level-ppp Clifford-hierarchy stabilizers for ppp-dimensional qudits. Finally, we demonstrate that a pair of qudit toric codes may be deterministically prepared in a logical magic state by measuring XCd(k)X\mathcal C^{(k)}_dXCd(k)​ stabilizers. Together, these results provide a concrete stabilizer framework for topological codes beyond Pauli stabilizer models and their logical gates.
The Clifford hierarchy is a nested sequence of sets of quantum gates critical to achieving fault-tolerant quantum computation. Diagonal gates of the Clifford hierarchy and ‘nearly diagonal’ semi-Clifford gates are particularly important: they admit efficient gate teleportation protocols that implement these gates with fewer ancillary quantum resources such as magic states. Despite the practical importance of these sets of gates, many questions about their structure remain open; this is especially true in the higher-dimensional qudit setting. Our contribution is to leverage the discrete Stone–von Neumann theorem and the symplectic formalism of qudit stabilizer theory towards extending the results of Zeng et al . (2008) and Beigi & Shor (2010) to higher dimensions in a uniform manner. We further give a simple algorithm for recursively enumerating all gates of the Clifford hierarchy, a simple algorithm for recognizing and diagonalizing semi-Clifford gates, and a concise proof of the classification of the diagonal Clifford hierarchy gates due to Cui et al . (2016) for the single-qudit case. We generalize the efficient gate teleportation protocols of semi-Clifford gates to the qudit setting and prove that every third-level gate of one qudit (of any prime dimension) and of two qutrits can be implemented efficiently. Numerical evidence gathered via the aforementioned algorithms supports the conjecture that higher-level gates can be implemented efficiently.
We develop a simple and systematic route to higher levels of the qubit Clifford hierarchy by coherently controlling Clifford operations. Our approach is based on Pauli periodicity, defined for a Clifford unitary UUU as the smallest integer m≥1m\ge 1m≥1 such that U2mU^{2^{m}}U2m is a Pauli operator up to phase. We prove a sharp controlled-jump rule showing that the controlled gate CUCUCU lies strictly in level m+2m+2m+2 of the hierarchy, and equivalently that CUCUCU lies in level kkk if U2k−2U^{2^{k-2}}U2k−2 is Pauli while no smaller positive power of UUU is Pauli. We further quantify the resources required to realize large level jumps in the Clifford hierarchy by proving an essentially tight upper bound on Pauli periodicity as a function of the number of qubits, which implies that accessing high hierarchy levels through controlled Cliffords requires a number of target qubits that grows exponentially with the desired level. We complement this limitation with explicit infinite families of Pauli-periodic Cliffords whose controlled versions achieve asymptotically optimal jumps. As an application, we propose a protocol for preparing logical catalyst states that enable logical Z1/2kZ^{1/2^k}Z1/2k phase gates via phase kickback from a single jumped Clifford.
An important question in quantum information theory asks whether every gate in the Clifford hierarchy is semi-Clifford or not, as such gates admit resource-efficient implementations via gate teleportation. Extending recent results for prime dimensions~\cite{silva_clifford_2025}, we prove that every hierarchy gate on a single qudit of dimension ddd is semi-Clifford, if and only if ddd is square-free. In composite dimensions, Zd2\mathbb{Z}_d^2Zd2​ is a symplectic module rather than a vector space, motivating a distinction between four types of gates. Semi-Clifford gates (SC\mathcal{SC}SC) are the ones that become diagonal under left and right multiplication by Clifford gates, while a broader class N\mathcal{N}N admits a permutation diagonal form, under left and right multiplication by Cliffords. Lagrangian semi-Clifford gates (LSC\mathcal{LSC}LSC) conjugate some maximal abelian Pauli subgroup to another, whereas generalized semi-Clifford gates (GSC\mathcal{GSC}GSC) map some maximal abelian Pauli subalgebra to another under conjugation. In square-free dimensions, we have SC=LSC\mathcal{SC}=\mathcal{LSC}SC=LSC and N=GSC\mathcal{N}=\mathcal{GSC}N=GSC, but when ddd is not square-free, these equivalences can fail, as Lagrangian submodules can become non-free. We also show that every third-level gate of the one-qudit Clifford hierarchy is a generalized semi-Clifford in arbitrary dimensions.