Effective quantum information processing is tantamount in part to minimization of the quantum resources needed by quantum logic gates. Here, we propose an optimization of an
n-controlled-qubit Fredkin gate with a maximum of
2n+1 two-qubit gates and
2n single-qudit gates by exploiting auxiliary Hilbert spaces. The number of logic gates required improves on earlier results on simulating arbitrary
n-qubit Fredkin gates. In particular, the optimal result for a one-controlled-qubit Fredkin gate (which requires three qutrit-qubit partial-swap gates) breaks the theoretical nonconstructive lower bound of five two-qubit gates. Furthermore, using an additional spatial-mode degree of freedom, we design a possible architecture to implement a polarization-encoded Fredkin gate with linear optical elements.
In this paper, we study the optimal simulation of three-qubit unitary by using two-qubit gates. First, we give a lower bound on the two-qubit gates cost of simulating a multi-qubit gate. Secondly, we completely characterize the two-qubit gate cost of simulating a three-qubit controlled controlled gate by generalizing our result on the cost of Toffoli gate. The function of controlled controlled gate is simply a three-qubit controlled unitary gate and can be intuitively explained as follows: the gate will output the states of the two control qubit directly, and apply the given one-qubit unitary
u on the target qubit only if both the states of the control are
∣1⟩. Previously, it is only known that five two-qubit gates is sufficient for implementing such a gate [Sleator and Weinfurter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4087 (1995)]. Our result shows that if the determinant of
u is 1, four two-qubit gates is achievable optimal. Otherwise, five is optimal. Thirdly, we show that five two-qubit gates are necessary and sufficient for implementing the Fredkin gate(the controlled swap gate), which settles the open problem introduced in [Smolin and DiVincenzo, Phys. Rev. A, 53, 2855 (1996)]. The Fredkin gate is one of the most important quantum logic gates because it is universal alone for classical reversible computation, and thus with little help, universal for quantum computation. Before our work, a five two-qubit gates decomposition of the Fredkin gate was already known, and numerical evidence of showing five is optimal is found.
The physical limitations of quantum hardware often require nearest-neighbor qubit structures, in which two-qubit gates are required to construct nearest-neighbor quantum circuits. However, two-qubit gates are considered a major cost of quantum circuits because of their high error rate as compared with single-qubit gates. The controlled-not (CNOT) gate is the typical choice of a two-qubit gate for universal quantum circuit implementation together with the set of single-qubit gates. In this study, we construct a one-dimensional nearest-neighbor circuit of quantum Fourier transform (QFT), which is one of the most frequently used quantum algorithms. Compared with previous studies on n-qubit one-dimensional nearest-neighbor QFT circuits, it is found that our method reduces the number of CNOT gates by ~60%. Additionally, we showed that our results for the one-dimensional nearest-neighbor circuit can be applied to quantum amplitude estimation.
Implementation of quantum logic gates with linear optical elements plays a prominent role in quantum computing due to the relatively easier manipulation and realization. We present efficient schemes to implement controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate and controlled-swap (Fredkin) gate by solely using linear optics. We encode the control qubits and target qudits in photonic polarization (two-level) and spatial degrees of freedom (
d-level), respectively. Based on the hybrid encoding, CNOT and Fredkin gates are constructed in a deterministic way without any borrowed ancillary photons or measurement-induced nonlinearities. Remarkably, the number of linear optics required to implement a CNOT gate has been reduced to one polarization beam splitter (PBS), while only
d PBSs are necessary to implement a generalized Fredkin gate. The optical depths of all schemes are reduced to one and dimension-independent. Besides, the fidelity of our three-qubit Fredkin gate is higher than 99.7\% under realistic conditions, which is higher than the previous schemes.
Multi-controlled single-target (MC) gates are some of the most crucial building blocks for varied quantum algorithms. How to implement them optimally is thus a pivotal question. To answer this question in an architecture-independent manner, and to get a worst-case estimate, we should look at a linear nearest-neighbor (LNN) architecture, as this can be embedded in almost any qubit connectivity. Motivated by the above, here we describe a method which implements MC gates using no more than
∼4k+8n CNOT gates -- up-to
60% reduction over state-of-the-art -- while allowing for complete flexibility to choose the locations of
n controls, the target, and a dirty ancilla out of
k qubits. More strikingly, in case
k≈n, our upper bound is
∼12n -- the best known for unrestricted connectivity -- and if
n=1, our upper bound is
∼4k -- the best known for a single long-range CNOT gate over
k qubits -- therefore, if our upper bound can be reduced, then the cost of one or both of these simpler versions of MC gates will be immediately reduced accordingly. In practice, our method provides circuits that tend to require fewer CNOT gates than our upper bound for almost any given instance of MC gates.