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arXiv:1512.07892 · Quantum Information and Computation

Further extensions of Clifford circuits and their classical simulation complexities

Dax Enshan Koh

Published Mar 1, 2017• 27 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Extended Clifford circuits straddle the boundary between classical and quantum computational power. Whether such circuits are efficiently classically simulable seems to depend delicately on the ingredients of the circuits. While some combinations of ingredients lead to efficiently classically simulable circuits, other combinations, which might just be slightly different, lead to circuits which are likely not. We extend the results of Jozsa and Van den Nest [Quant. Info. Comput. 14, 633 (2014)] by studying two further extensions of Clifford circuits. First, we consider how the classical simulation complexity changes when we allow for more general measurements. Second, we investigate different notions of what it means to ‘classically simulate’ a quantum circuit. These further extensions give us 24 new combinations of ingredients compared to Jozsa and Van den Nest, and we give a complete classification of their classical simulation complexities. Our results provide more examples where seemingly modest changes to the ingredients of Clifford circuits lead to “large” changes in the classical simulation complexities of the circuits, and also include new examples of extended Clifford circuits that exhibit “quantum supremacy”, in the sense that it is not possible to efficiently classically sample from the output distributions of such circuits, unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses.

DOI
10.26421/qic17.3-4-5

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Extended Clifford circuits straddle the boundary between classical and quantum computational power. Whether such circuits are efficiently classically simulable seems to depend delicately on the ingredients of the circuits. While some combinations of ingredients lead to efficiently classically simulable circuits, other combinations, which might just be slightly different, lead to circuits which are likely not. We extend the results of Jozsa and Van den Nest [Quant. Info. Comput. 14, 633 (2014)] by studying two further extensions of Clifford circuits. First, we consider how the classical simulation complexity changes when we allow for more general measurements. Second, we investigate different notions of what it means to ‘classically simulate’ a quantum circuit. These further extensions give us 24 new combinations of ingredients compared to Jozsa and Van den Nest, and we give a complete classification of their classical simulation complexities. Our results provide more examples where seemingly modest changes to the ingredients of Clifford circuits lead to “large” changes in the classical simulation complexities of the circuits, and also include new examples of extended Clifford circuits that exhibit “quantum supremacy”, in the sense that it is not possible to efficiently classically sample from the output distributions of such circuits, unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses.
Clifford gates are a winsome class of quantum operations combining mathematical elegance with physical significance. The Gottesman-Knill theorem asserts that Clifford computations can be classically efficiently simulated but this is true only in a suitably restricted setting. Here we consider Clifford computations with a variety of additional ingredients: (a) strong vs. weak simulation, (b) inputs being computational basis states vs. general product states, (c) adaptive vs. non-adaptive choices of gates for circuits involving intermediate measurements, (d) single line outputs vs. multi-line outputs. We consider the classical simulation complexity of all combinations of these ingredients and show that many are not classically efficiently simulatable (subject to common complexity assumptions such as P not equal to NP). Our results reveal a surprising proximity of classical to quantum computing power viz. a class of classically simulatable quantum circuits which yields universal quantum computation if extended by a purely classical additional ingredient that does not extend the class of quantum processes occurring.
Clifford gates are a winsome class of quantum operations combining mathematical elegance with physical significance. The Gottesman-Knill theorem asserts that Clifford computations can be classically efficiently simulated but this is true only in a suitably restricted setting. Here we consider Clifford computations with a variety of additional ingredients: (a) strong vs. weak simulation, (b) inputs being computational basis states vs. general product states, (c) adaptive vs. non-adaptive choices of gates for circuits involving intermediate measurements, (d) single line outputs vs. multi-line outputs. We consider the classical simulation complexity of all combinations of these ingredients and show that many are not classically efficiently simulatable (subject to common complexity assumptions such as P not equal to NP). Our results reveal a surprising proximity of classical to quantum computing power viz. a class of classically simulatable quantum circuits which yields universal quantum computation if extended by a purely classical additional ingredient that does not extend the class of quantum processes occurring.
Clifford gates are a winsome class of quantum operations combining mathematical elegance with physical significance. The Gottesman-Knill theorem asserts that Clifford computations can be classically effciently simulated but this is true only in a suitably restricted setting. Here we consider Clifford computations with a variety of additional ingredients: (a) strong vs. weak simulation, (b) inputs being computational basis states vs. general product states, (c) adaptive vs. non-adaptive choices of gates for circuits involving intermediate measurements, (d) single line outputs vs. multi-line outputs. We consider the classical simulation complexity of all combinations of these ingredients and show that many are not classically effciently simulatable (subject to common complexity assumptions such as P not equal to NP). Our results reveal a surprising proximity of classical to quantum computing power viz. a class of classically simulatable quantum circuits which yields universal quantum computation if extended by a purely classical additional ingredient that does not extend the class of quantum processes occurring. © Rinton Press.
Quantum computations starting with computational basis states and involving only Clifford operations, are classically simulable despite the fact that they generate highly entangled states; this is the content of the Gottesman-Knill theorem. Here we isolate the ingredients of the theorem and provide generalisations of some of them with the aim of identifying new classes of simulable quantum computations. In the usual construction, Clifford operations arise as projective normalisers of the first and second tensor powers of the Pauli group. We consider replacing the Pauli group by an arbitrary finite subgroup GGG of U(d)U(d)U(d). In particular we seek GGG such that G⊗GG\otimes GG⊗G has an entangling normaliser. Via a generalisation of the Gottesman-Knill theorem the resulting normalisers lead to classes of quantum circuits that can be classically efficiently simulated. For the qubit case d=2d = 2d=2 we exhaustively treat all finite irreducible subgroups of U(2)U(2)U(2) and find that the only ones (up to unitary equivalence and trivial phase extensions) with entangling normalisers are the groups generated by X and the nthn^{\rm th}nth root of ZZZ for n∈Nn \in \Nn∈N.
Quantum computations that involve only Clifford operations are classically simulable despite the fact that they generate highly entangled states; this is the content of the Gottesman-Knill theorem. Here we isolate the ingredients of the theorem and provide generalisations of some of them with the aim of identifying new classes of simulable quantum computations. In the usual construction, Clifford operations arise as projective normalisers of the first and second tensor powers of the Pauli group. We consider replacing the Pauli group by an arbitrary finite subgroup G of U(d). In particular we seek G such that G tensor G has an entangling normaliser. Via a generalisation of the Gottesman-Knill theorem the resulting normalisers lead to classes of quantum circuits that can be classically efficiently simulated. For the qubit case d=2 we exhaustively treat all finite subgroups of U(2) and find that the only ones (up to unitary equivalence and trivial phase extensions) with entangling normalisers are the groups G_n generated by X and the n^th root of Z.
It is widely believed that quantum computation has the potential to offer an ex- ponential speedup over classical devices. However, there is currently no definitive proof of this separation in computational power. Such a separation would in turn imply that quantum circuits cannot be efficiently simulated classically. However, it is well known that certain classes of quantum computations nonetheless admit an efficient classical description. Recent work has also argued that efficient classical simulation of quantum circuits would imply the collapse of the Polynomial Hierarchy, something which is commonly invoked in clas- sical complexity theory as a no-go theorem. This suggests a route for studying this ‘quantum advantage’ through classical simulations. This project looks at the problem of classically simulating quantum circuits through decompositions into stabilizer circuits. These are a restricted class of quantum computation which can be efficiently simulated classically. In this picture, the rank of the decomposition determines the temporal and spatial complexity of the simulation. We approach the problem by considering classical simulations of stabilizer circuits, introducing two new representations with novel features compared to previous meth- ods. We then examine techniques for building these so-called ‘stabilizer rank’ decom- positions, both exact and approximate. Finally, we combine these two ingredients to introduce an improved method for classically simulating broad classes of circuits using the stabilizer rank method.