This note presents a simple and unified formulation of the most fundamental structures used in quantum information with qubits, arbitrary dimension qudits, and quantum continuous variables. This \emph{general quantum variables} construction provides a succinct language for formulating many results in quantum computation and information so that they are applicable in all dimensions. The structures included within this formalism include: a generalization to arbitrary dimension of the three Pauli operators, and the associated mutually unbiased bases; the Pauli and Clifford groups; many important quantum gates; standard sets of generators for the Clifford group; and simple universal gate sets. This formalism provides a convenient, intuitive and extensible language for easily generalizing results that were originally derived for a single type of system (often qubits or quantum continuous variables), and that rely on only those structures listed above, to apply in all dimensions.
This note presents a simple and unified formulation of the most fundamental structures used in quantum information with qubits, arbitrary dimension qudits, and quantum continuous variables. This \emph{general quantum variables} construction provides a succinct language for formulating many results in quantum computation and information so that they are applicable in all dimensions. The structures included within this formalism include: a generalization to arbitrary dimension of the three Pauli operators, and the associated mutually unbiased bases; the Pauli and Clifford groups; many important quantum gates; standard sets of generators for the Clifford group; and simple universal gate sets. This formalism provides a convenient, intuitive and extensible language for easily generalizing results that were originally derived for a single type of system (often qubits or quantum continuous variables), and that rely on only those structures listed above, to apply in all dimensions.
Qudits are the natural generalization of qubits, that is, the basic unit of information in quantum computation. This generalization allows for quantum states to be represented with the same cyclic nature present in qubits, while also permitting the basic unit of information to be stored in d-level systems. In this document, we are concerned with studying universality over qudits on arbitrary dimension d. The question of single-qudit universality of a set of operators can be reduced to studying the adjoint representation of the set and determining whether or not its generated group is finite. Thus, we set out to find universal sets of operators in quantum computation over qudits, for any possible value of d. Moreover, we focus on finding “Clifford + T-like” universal sets of operators in arbitrary dimensions, in the hopes of maintaining a strong analog to the qubits case and its most studied universal set. We accomplish this goal by studying how the Clifford group behaves on arbitrary dimensions, and how this behavior relates to the typical Clifford group in prime dimensions. Furthermore, we find that the Clifford group on arbitrary dimension splits as the typical Clifford group on each of the coprime factors of d, which leads to a fundamental difference between the study of universality on prime power dimensions and arbitrary dimensions containing co-prime factors. Then, we focus on studying the structure of universal sets in dimension d, for any d containing at least two co-prime factors. Thus, after studying which T-like gates drive the single-qudit Clifford group to universality on prime power dimensions; that is, guaranteeing the irreducibility of the adjoint representation and an infinite generated group, we combine these two approaches to obtain “Clifford + T-like” universal sets on all possible dimensions.
This paper presents a unified algebraic framework for n-qubit quantum computation rooted in the complex Clifford algebra Cl(2n,C). We leverage the fundamental isomorphism Cl(2n,C)≅M(2n,C) to directly identify the algebra of all n-qubit quantum operators (including states, gates, and observables) with elements of Cl(2n,C). This operator-centric perspective treats quantum states, whether pure or mixed, as density multivectors ρ∈Cl(2n,C) satisfying standard physical constraints (ρ†=ρ, 2n⟨ρ⟩0=1, positivity), and unitary gates U as multivectors obeying U†U=I. Quantum evolution ρ′=UρU† and measurements p(m)=2n⟨Pmρ⟩0 are thus described by intrinsic Clifford algebraic operations. This contrasts with, yet encompasses, specific realizations like spinor representations based on Witt ideals (S=Cl(2n,C)∏jfjfj†), which are shown to be particular constructions within this universal algebra. By analyzing Deutsch's algorithm through these different lenses, we demonstrate the generality and unifying power of the operator-centric multivector approach. This formulation not only provides a comprehensive algebraic language that naturally handles mixed states and general quantum processes but also opens avenues for applying the rich geometric and structural tools of Clifford algebras—such as grade decomposition and invariant theory—to gain deeper insights into quantum information, entanglement, and dynamics.
Quantum computing with qudits, quantum systems with d>2 levels, offers a powerful extension beyond qubits, expanding the computational possibilities of quantum systems, allowing the simplification of the implementation of several algorithms and, possibly, providing a foundation for optimised error correction. In this work, we propose a novel formulation of qudit gates that is universally applicable for any number of levels d, without restrictions on the dimensionality. By extending the mathematical framework of quantum gates to arbitrary dimensions, we derive explicit gate operations that form a universal set for quantum computation on qudits of any size. We demonstrate the validity of our approach through the implementation of the Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT) for arbitrary d, verifying both the correctness and utility of our generalized gates. This novel methodology broadens the design space for quantum algorithms and fault-tolerant architectures, paving the way for advancements in qudit-based quantum computing.
We introduce a novel strategy, based on the use of modular variables, to encode and deterministically process quantum information using states described by continuous variables. Our formalism leads to a general recipe to adapt existing quantum information protocols, originally formulated for finite dimensional quantum systems, to infinite dimensional systems described by continuous variables. This is achieved by using non unitary and non-gaussian operators, obtained from the superposition of gaussian gates, together with adaptative manipulations in qubit systems defined in infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces. We describe in details the realization of single and two qubit gates and briefly discuss their implementation in a quantum optical set-up.
The Clifford group plays a central role in quantum information science. It is the building block for many error-correcting schemes and matches the first three moments of the Haar measure over the unitary group-a property that is essential for a broad range of quantum algorithms, with applications in pseudorandomness, learning theory, benchmarking, and entanglement distillation. At the heart of understanding many properties of the Clifford group lies the Clifford commutant: the set of operators that commute with k -fold tensor powers of Clifford unitaries. Previous understanding of this commutant has been limited to relatively small values of k , constrained by the number of qubits n . In this work, we develop a complete theory of the Clifford commutant. Our first result provides an explicit orthogonal basis for the commutant and computes its dimension for arbitrary n and k . We also introduce an alternative and easy-to-manipulate basis formed by isotropic sums of Pauli operators. We show that this basis is generated by products of permutations, which generate the unitary group commutant, and at most three other operators. Additionally, we develop a graphical calculus allowing a diagrammatic manipulation of elements of this basis. These results enable a wealth of applications: among others, we characterize all measurable magic measures and identify optimal strategies for stabilizer property testing, whose success probability also offers an operational interpretation to stabilizer entropies. Finally, we show that these results also generalize to multi-qudit systems with prime local dimension.
Since the early days of quantum information science, diverse strategies have been proposed to encode qubits and implement quantum gates across various physical platforms. Modes and bosonic states offer a flexible framework for quantum information processing, from single-photon optics to superconducting circuits, combining massless and massive particles. Universal gate sets have been established for specific encodings—such as those based on Fock states or the field’s quadratures. However, a general framework clarifying how different bosonic resources—such as mode structure, particle-number statistics, Gaussian and non-Gaussian states and operations—combine to enable universality and potential quantum advantage irrespectively of the encoding remains lacking. A main difficulty lies in the coexistence of distinct paradigms that appear to combine loosely in bosonic quantum information: discrete-variable schemes—where information is encoded in qubits or effective finite-dimensional systems—and continuous-variable schemes—which rely on infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces associated with the field’s quadratures. Despite the success of each approach, they remain seemingly incompatible in many aspects—in particular in terms of physical resource analysis for universality—due to their underlying mathematical differences. In this work, we apply a superselection-rule-compliant framework for bosonic quantum information that unifies these paradigms. This representation explicitly incorporates the phase reference and enforces total particle number conservation, allowing for a consistent treatment of bosonic quantum information protocols and resources across both discrete and continuous regimes. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions expressed in terms of Gaussian and non-Gaussian resources for universality that apply to any encoding, without resorting to specific mappings. Our results show that continuous variable encodings are not fundamentally distinct from discrete ones, but rather emerge as subspaces within a general bosonic structure. Importantly, in such a widely studied framework, non-Gaussian properties of bosonic states and operations can be washed out, providing evidence that the continuous variables regime is not the most suitable to fully assess the quantum properties of bosons.