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arXiv:2010.13817 · PRX Quantum

Many-Body Quantum Magic

Zi-Wen Liu, Andreas Winter

Published May 12, 2022• 169 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Magic (nonstabilizerness) is a necessary but "expensive" kind of "fuel" to drive universal fault-tolerant quantum computation.To properly study and characterize the origin of quantum "complexity" in computation as well as physics, it is crucial to develop a rigorous understanding of the quantification of magic.Previous studies of magic mostly focused on small systems and largely relied on the discrete Wigner formalism (which is only well behaved in odd prime power dimensions).Here we present an initiatory study of the magic of genuinely many-body quantum states that may be strongly entangled, with focus on the important case of many qubits, at a quantitative level.We first address the basic question of how "magical" a many-body state can be, and show that the maximum magic of an n-qubit state is essentially n, simultaneously for a range of "good" magic measures.As a corollary, the resource theory of magic has asymptotic golden currency states.We then show that, in fact, almost all n-qubit pure states have magic of nearly n.In the quest for explicit, scalable cases of highly entangled states whose magic can be understood, we connect the magic of hypergraph states with the second-order nonlinearity of their underlying Boolean functions.Next, we go on and investigate many-body magic in practical and physical contexts.We first consider a variant of measurement-based quantum computation where the client is restricted to Pauli measurements, in which magic is a necessary feature of the initial "resource" state.We show that n-qubit states with nearly n magic, or indeed almost all states, cannot supply nontrivial speedups over classical computers.We then present an example of analyzing the magic of "natural" condensed matter systems of physical interest.We apply the Boolean function techniques to derive explicit bounds on the magic of certain representative two-dimensional symmetry-protected topological states, and comment on possible further connections between magic and the quantum complexity of phases of matter.

DOI
10.1103/prxquantum.3.020333

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Magic (nonstabilizerness) is a necessary but "expensive" kind of "fuel" to drive universal fault-tolerant quantum computation.To properly study and characterize the origin of quantum "complexity" in computation as well as physics, it is crucial to develop a rigorous understanding of the quantification of magic.Previous studies of magic mostly focused on small systems and largely relied on the discrete Wigner formalism (which is only well behaved in odd prime power dimensions).Here we present an initiatory study of the magic of genuinely many-body quantum states that may be strongly entangled, with focus on the important case of many qubits, at a quantitative level.We first address the basic question of how "magical" a many-body state can be, and show that the maximum magic of an n-qubit state is essentially n, simultaneously for a range of "good" magic measures.As a corollary, the resource theory of magic has asymptotic golden currency states.We then show that, in fact, almost all n-qubit pure states have magic of nearly n.In the quest for explicit, scalable cases of highly entangled states whose magic can be understood, we connect the magic of hypergraph states with the second-order nonlinearity of their underlying Boolean functions.Next, we go on and investigate many-body magic in practical and physical contexts.We first consider a variant of measurement-based quantum computation where the client is restricted to Pauli measurements, in which magic is a necessary feature of the initial "resource" state.We show that n-qubit states with nearly n magic, or indeed almost all states, cannot supply nontrivial speedups over classical computers.We then present an example of analyzing the magic of "natural" condensed matter systems of physical interest.We apply the Boolean function techniques to derive explicit bounds on the magic of certain representative two-dimensional symmetry-protected topological states, and comment on possible further connections between magic and the quantum complexity of phases of matter.
Magic, or nonstabilizerness, characterizes the deviation of a quantum state from the set of stabilizer states, playing a fundamental role in quantum state complexity and universal fault-tolerant quantum computing. However, analytical and numerical characterizations of magic are very challenging, especially for multi-qubit systems, even with a moderate qubit number. Here, we systemically and analytically investigate the magic resource of archetypal multipartite quantum states—quantum hypergraph states, which can be generated by multi-qubit controlled-phase gates encoded by hypergraphs. We first derive the magic formula in terms of the stabilizer Rényi- α entropies for general quantum hypergraph states. If the average degree of the corresponding hypergraph is constant, we show that magic cannot reach the maximal value, i.e., the number of qubits n . Then, we investigate the statistical behaviors of random hypergraph states' magic and prove a concentration result, indicating that random hypergraph states typically reach the maximum magic. This also suggests an efficient way to generate maximal magic states with random diagonal circuits. Finally, we study hypergraph states with permutation symmetry, such as 3 -complete hypergraph states, where any three vertices are connected by a hyperedge. Counterintuitively, such states can only possess constant or even exponentially small magic for α≥2 . Our study advances the understanding of multipartite quantum magic and could lead to applications in quantum computing and quantum many-body physics.
Understanding quantum magic (i.e., nonstabilizerness) in many-body quantum systems is challenging but essential to the study of quantum computation and many-body physics. We investigate how noise affects magic properties in entangled many-body quantum states by quantitatively examining the magic decay under noise, with a primary aim being to understand the stability of magic associated with different kinds of entanglement structures. As a standard model, we study hypergraph states, a representative class of many-body magic states, subject to depolarizing noise. First, we show that interactions facilitated by high-degree gates are fragile to noise. In particular, the Cn−1Z\mathrm{C}^{n-1}ZCn−1Z state family exhibits a vanishing magic threshold of Θ(1/n)Θ(1/n)Θ(1/n). Furthermore, we demonstrate efficiently preparable families of hypergraph states without local magic but with a non-vanishing magic threshold which signifies robust magic that is entirely embedded in global entanglement. We also discuss the qudit case based on the discrete Wigner formalism.
Quantum magic is a necessary resource for fault-tolerant quantum computing, capturing the departure of quantum states from the classically simulable stabiliser set. Motivated by its role in quantum information processing, we investigate the correlation structure of states that maximize the Rényi stabiliser entropies, focusing on the T-type and Hoggar states. Inspired by their distinctive properties, we explore the notion of Pauli flat states, defined as N-qubit states whose expectation values on all Pauli strings are equal in absolute value. These states reproduce the correlation structure of highly magical states, which could also be interpreted as a mixed variant of Pauli covariant N-qubit symmetric informationally complete (SIC) Weyl-Heisenberg fiducial states, while not necessarily possessing nontrivial quantum magic. We investigate their existence and possible constructions, including examples both inside and outside of the stabiliser polytope. To identify the latter, we examine a magic witness tailored to the introduced family of states. Finally, we discuss their entanglement and Bell nonlocality, providing a broader characterization of their quantum properties. For completeness, we find pure states with a relaxed condition on the Pauli expectations, which forces unequal elements to zero, and discuss their non-stabiliserness. Our results offer a new perspective on the relation between quantum magic and Pauli correlation structures. They hold relevance to geometrical approaches to quantum mechanics, entanglement and magic detection, as well as estimation tasks.
Understanding the computational complexity of quantum states is a central challenge in quantum many-body physics. In qubit systems, fermionic Gaussian states can be efficiently simulated on classical computers and hence can be employed as a natural baseline for evaluating quantum complexity. In this work, we develop a framework for quantifying fermionic magic resources, also referred to as fermionic non-Gaussianity, which constitutes an essential resource for universal quantum computation. We leverage the algebraic structure of the fermionic commutant to define the fermionic antiflatness (FAF)—an efficiently computable and experimentally accessible measure of non-Gaussianity, with a clear physical interpretation in terms of Majorana fermion correlation functions. Studying systems in equilibrium, we show that FAF detects phase transitions, reveals universal features of critical points, and uncovers special solvable points in many-body systems. Extending the analysis to out-of-equilibrium settings, we demonstrate that fermionic magic resources become more abundant in highly excited eigenstates of many-body systems. We further investigate the growth and saturation of FAF under ergodic many-body dynamics, highlighting the roles of conservation laws and locality in constraining the increase of non-Gaussianity during unitary evolution. This work provides a framework for probing quantum many-body complexity from the perspective of fermionic Gaussian states and opens up directions for investigating fermionic magic resources in many-body systems. Our results establish fermionic non-Gaussianity, alongside entanglement and nonstabilizerness, as a resource relevant not only to foundational studies but also to experimental platforms aiming to achieve quantum advantage.
Nonstabilizerness, or magic, is a necessary resource for quantum advantage beyond the classically simulatable Clifford framework. Recent works have begun to chart the structure of magic in many-body states, introducing the concepts of long-range magic -- nonstabilizerness that cannot be removed by finite-depth local unitary (FDU) circuits -- and the magic hierarchy, which classifies quantum circuits by alternating layers of Clifford and FDUs. In this work, we construct explicit states that provably possess two-sided long-range magic, a stronger form of magic meaning that they cannot be prepared by a Clifford circuit and a FDU in either order, thus placing them provably outside the first level of the magic hierarchy. Our examples include the ``magical cat" state, ∣ψ⟩∝∣0n⟩+∣+n⟩|ψ\rangle \propto |0^n\rangle + |+^n\rangle∣ψ⟩∝∣0n⟩+∣+n⟩, and ground states of certain nonabelian topological orders. These results provide new examples and proof techniques for circuit complexity, and in doing so, reveal the connection between long-range magic, the structure of many-body phases, and the principles of quantum error correction.
Quantum state purification aims to recover higher-fidelity quantum states from multiple noisy copies and is a fundamental primitive for quantum information processing. Magic resources enable operations beyond classically simulable dynamics and are central to universal fault-tolerant quantum computation. Recent no-go results show that classically simulable operations cannot achieve a nontrivial universal fidelity gain. This motivates a quantitative theory of the magic required for purification at prescribed success probability and target fidelity. For universal purification with two input copies, we prove an exact linear mana law in odd dimensions and a two-sided linear robustness law for multi-qubit systems, which becomes exact for a single qubit. We also identify an explicit successful purification map that makes the tradeoff transparent. These results establish universal purification as a task obeying a quantitative magic-fidelity law and link magic resources to error mitigation and fault-tolerant quantum information processing.