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arXiv:2104.06429

Qufinite ZX-calculus: a unified framework of qudit ZX-calculi

Quanlong Wang

Published Apr 13, 2021• 11 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2104.06429

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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.
Finite-dimensional quantum theory serves as the theoretical foundation for quantum information and computation. Mathematically, it is formalized in the category FHilb, comprising all finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces and linear maps between them. However, there has not been a graphical language for FHilb which is both universal and complete and thus incorporates a set of rules rich enough to derive any equality of the underlying formalism solely by rewriting. In this paper, we introduce the qufinite ZXW calculus - a graphical language for reasoning about finite-dimensional quantum theory. We set up a unique normal form to represent an arbitrary tensor and prove the completeness of this calculus by demonstrating that any qufinite ZXW diagram can be rewritten into its normal form. This result implies the equivalence of the qufinite ZXW calculus and the category FHilb, leading to a purely diagrammatic framework for finite-dimensional quantum theory with the same reasoning power. In addition, we identify several domains where the application of the qufinite ZXW calculus holds promise. These domains include spin networks, interacting mixed-dimensional systems in quantum chemistry, quantum programming, high-level description of quantum algorithms, and mixed-dimensional quantum computing. Our work paves the way for a comprehensive diagrammatic description of quantum physics, opening the doors of this area to the wider public.
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.
ZW-calculus is a useful graphical language for pure qubit quantum computing. It is via the translation of the completeness of ZW-calculus that the first proof of completeness of ZX-calculus was obtained. A d-level generalisation of qubit ZW-calculus (anyonic qudit ZW-calculus) has been given in [Hadzihasanovic 2017] which is universal for pure qudit quantum computing. However, the interpretation of the W spider in this type of ZW-calculus has so-called q-binomial coefficients involved, thus makes computation quite complicated. In this paper, we give a new type of qudit ZW-calculus which has generators and rewriting rules similar to that of the qubit ZW-calculus. Especially, the Z spider is exactly the same as that of the qudit ZX-calculus as given in [Wang 2021], and the new W spider has much simpler interpretation as a linear map. Furthermore, we establish a translation between this qudit ZW-calculus and the qudit ZX-calculus which is universal as shown in [Wang 2021], therefore this qudit ZW-calculus is also universal for pure qudit quantum computing.
The ZX-calculus is a graphical language for reasoning about quantum computing and quantum information theory.As a complete graphical language, it incorporates a set of axioms rich enough to derive any equation of the underlying formalism.While completeness of the ZX-calculus has been established for qubits and the Clifford fragment of prime-dimensional qudits, universal completeness beyond two-level systems has remained unproven until now.In this paper, we present a proof establishing the completeness of finite-dimensional ZX-calculus, incorporating only the mixeddimensional Z-spider and the qudit X-spider as generators.Our approach builds on the completeness of another graphical language, the finite-dimensional ZW-calculus, with direct translations between these two calculi.By proving its completeness, we lay a solid foundation for the ZX-calculus as a versatile tool not only for quantum computation but also for various fields within finite-dimensional quantum theory.
Loop quantum gravity (LQG) attempts to unify general relativity with quantum physics to offer a complete description of the universe by quantising spacetime geometry, but the numerical calculations we encounter are extraordinarily difficult. Progress has been made in the covariant formulation of LQG, but the tools do not carry over to the canonical formulation. These tools are graphical by nature, describing space with spin networks to make calculations in LQG more intuitive to the human hand. Recently, a new notation for working with spin networks has been used by arXiv:2412.20272 to offer the first accurate numerical results in canonical LQG by allowing the underlying graphs to change throughout the calculation, though they are forced to concede visual intuitiveness. In this thesis, we offer a more radical rephrasing of spin network calculations by translating them into the finite-dimensional ZX-calculus, extending previous attempts to translate into the standard (qubit) ZX-calculus (arXiv:2111.03114). Specifically, we derive the mixed-dimensional ZX-diagrams representing the generating objects of spin networks and the rules for the Penrose Spin Calculus (arXiv:2511.06012), and use these to present the ZX-form and correctness of "loop removal". We also derive the forms for several fundamental LQG objects in the finite-dimensional ZX-calculus for the first time. This gives us a high-level, intuitive graphical language that retains a flexibility to handle changing graph structures, and thus we argue positions the PSC as the new definitive language for canonical LQG. Furthermore, we investigate the possibility for a matrix-like normal form for spin networks deriving from a novel perspective of the PSC in terms of W-nodes.
We introduce the Scalable ZX-calculus (SZX-calculus for short), a formal and compact graphical language for the design and verification of quantum computations. The SZX-calculus is an extension of the ZX-calculus, a powerful framework that captures graphically the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics through its complete set of rewrite rules. The ZX-calculus is, however, a low level language, with each wire representing a single qubit. This limits its ability to handle large and elaborate quantum evolutions. We extend the ZX-calculus to registers of qubits and allow compact representation of sub-diagrams via binary matrices. We show soundness and completeness of the SZX-calculus and provide two examples of applications, for graph states and error correcting codes.