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arXiv:2008.04193 · Leibniz international proceedings in informatics

A Recipe for Quantum Graphical Languages

Titouan Carette, Emmanuel Jeandel

Published Jan 1, 2020• 7 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Different graphical calculi have been proposed to represent quantum computation. First the ZX-calculus [Coecke and Duncan, 2011], followed by the ZW-calculus [Hadzihasanovic, 2015] and then the ZH-calculus [Backens and Kissinger, 2018]. We can wonder if new ZX-like calculi will continue to be proposed forever. This article answers negatively. All those language share a common core structure we call Z^*-algebras. We classify Z^*-algebras up to isomorphism in two dimensional Hilbert spaces and show that they are all variations of the aforementioned calculi. We do the same for linear relations and show that the calculus of [Bonchi et al., 2017] is essentially the unique one.

DOI
10.4230/lipics.icalp.2020.118

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Different graphical calculi have been proposed to represent quantum computation. First the ZX-calculus [Coecke and Duncan, 2011], followed by the ZW-calculus [Hadzihasanovic, 2015] and then the ZH-calculus [Backens and Kissinger, 2018]. We can wonder if new ZX-like calculi will continue to be proposed forever. This article answers negatively. All those language share a common core structure we call Z^-algebras. We classify Z^-algebras up to isomorphism in two dimensional Hilbert spaces and show that they are all variations of the aforementioned calculi. We do the same for linear relations and show that the calculus of [Bonchi et al., 2017] is essentially the unique one.
Categorical quantum mechanics places finite-dimensional quantum theory in the context of compact closed categories, with an emphasis on diagrammatic reasoning. In this framework, two equational diagrammatic calculi have been proposed for pure-state qubit quantum computing: the ZW calculus, developed by Coecke, Kissinger and the first author for the purpose of qubit entanglement classification, and the ZX calculus, introduced by Coecke and Duncan to give an abstract description of complementary observables. Neither calculus, however, provided a complete axiomatisation of their model.
ZX-calculus is a graphical language for quantum computing which is complete in the sense that calculation in matrices can be done in a purely diagrammatic way. However, all previous universally complete axiomatisations of ZX-calculus have included at least one rule involving trigonometric functions such as sin and cos which makes it difficult for application purpose. In this paper we give an algebraic complete axiomatisation of ZX-calculus instead such that there are only ring operations involved for phases. With this algebraic axiomatisation of ZX-calculus, we are able to establish for the first time a simple translation of diagrams from another graphical language called ZH-calculus and to derive all the ZX-translated rules of ZH-calculus. As a consequence, we have a great benefit that all techniques obtained in ZH-calculus can be transplanted to ZX-calculus, which can't be obtained by just using the completeness of ZX-calculus.
The ZX-calculus is a universal graphical language for qubit quantum computation, meaning that every linear map between qubits can be expressed in the ZX-calculus. Furthermore, it is a complete graphical rewrite system: any equation involving linear maps that is derivable in the Hilbert space formalism for quantum theory can also be derived in the calculus by rewriting. It has widespread usage within quantum industry and academia for a variety of tasks such as quantum circuit optimisation, error-correction, and education.The ZW-calculus is an alternative universal graphical language that is also complete for qubit quantum computing. In fact, its completeness was used to prove that the ZX-calculus is universally complete. This calculus has advanced how quantum circuits are compiled into photonic hardware architectures in the industry.Recently, by combining these two calculi, a new calculus has emerged for qubit quantum computation, the ZXW-calculus. Using this calculus, graphical-differentiation, -integration, and -exponentiation were made possible, thus enabling the development of novel techniques in the domains of quantum machine learning and quantum chemistry.Here, we generalise the ZXW-calculus to arbitrary finite dimensions, that is, to qudits. Moreover, we prove that this graphical rewrite system is complete for any finite dimension. This is the first completeness result for any universal graphical language beyond qubits.
ZX-calculus is graphical language for quantum computing which usually focuses on qubits. In this paper, we generalise qubit ZX-calculus to qudit ZX-calculus in any finite dimension by introducing suitable generators, especially a carefully chosen triangle node. As a consequence we obtain a set of rewriting rules which can be seen as a direct generalisation of qubit rules, and a normal form for any qudit vectors. Based on the qudit ZX-calculi, we propose a graphical formalism called qufinite ZX-calculus as a unified framework for all qudit ZX-calculi, which is universal for finite quantum theory due to a normal form for matrix of any finite size. As a result, it would be interesting to give a fine-grained version of the diagrammatic reconstruction of finite quantum theory [Selby2021reconstructing] within the framework of qufinite ZX-calculus.
The ZW-calculus is a graphical language capable of representing 2-dimensional quantum systems (qubit) through its diagrams, and manipulating them through its equational theory. We extend the formalism to accommodate finite dimensional Hilbert spaces beyond qubit systems. First we define a qudddit version of the language, where all systems have the same arbitrary finite dimension ddd, and show that the provided equational theory is both complete -- i.e. semantical equivalence is entirely captured by the equations -- and minimal -- i.e. none of the equations are consequences of the others. We then extend the graphical language further to allow for mixed-dimensional systems. We again show the completeness and minimality of the provided equational theory.