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arXiv:2302.07895 · Physical Review A

Phase transition in stabilizer entropy and efficient purity estimation

Lorenzo Leone, Salvatore F. E. Oliviero, Gianluca Esposito, Alioscia Hamma

Published Mar 1, 2024• 26 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Stabilizer entropy (SE) quantifies the spread of a state in the basis of Pauli operators. It is a computationally tractable measure of nonstabilizerness and thus a useful resource for quantum computation. SE can be moved around a quantum system, effectively purifying a subsystem from its complex features. We show that there is a phase transition in the residual subsystem SE as a function of the density of non-Clifford resources. This phase transition has important operational consequences: it marks the onset of a subsystem purity estimation protocol that requires $poly(n)exp(t)$ many queries to a circuit containing $t$ non-Clifford gates that prepares the state from a stabilizer state. Then, for $t=O({log}_{2}n)$, it estimates the purity with polynomial resources, and, for highly entangled states, attains an exponential speed-up over the known state-of-the-art algorithms.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.109.032403

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Stabilizer entropy (SE) quantifies the spread of a state in the basis of Pauli operators. It is a computationally tractable measure of nonstabilizerness and thus a useful resource for quantum computation. SE can be moved around a quantum system, effectively purifying a subsystem from its complex features. We show that there is a phase transition in the residual subsystem SE as a function of the density of non-Clifford resources. This phase transition has important operational consequences: it marks the onset of a subsystem purity estimation protocol that requires poly(n)exp(t)poly(n)exp(t)poly(n)exp(t) many queries to a circuit containing ttt non-Clifford gates that prepares the state from a stabilizer state. Then, for t=O(log2n)t=O({log}_{2}n)t=O(log2​n), it estimates the purity with polynomial resources, and, for highly entangled states, attains an exponential speed-up over the known state-of-the-art algorithms.
Stabilizer entropies (SEs) are measures of nonstabilizerness or "magic" that quantify the degree to which a state is described by stabilizers. SEs are especially interesting due to their connections to scrambling, localization and property testing. However, applications have been limited so far as previously known measurement protocols for SEs scale exponentially with the number of qubits. Here, we efficiently measure SEs for integer Rényi index n>1 via Bell measurements. The SE of N-qubit quantum states can be measured with O(n) copies and O(nN) classical computational time, where for even n we additionally require the complex conjugate of the state. We provide efficient bounds of various nonstabilizerness monotones that are intractable to compute beyond a few qubits. Using the IonQ quantum computer, we measure SEs of random Clifford circuits doped with non-Clifford gates and give bounds for the stabilizer fidelity, stabilizer extent, and robustness of magic. We provide efficient algorithms to measure Clifford-averaged 4n-point out-of-time-order correlators and multifractal flatness. With these measures we study the scrambling time of doped Clifford circuits and random Hamiltonian evolution depending on nonstabilizerness. Counterintuitively, random Hamiltonian evolution becomes less scrambled at long times, which we reveal with the multifractal flatness. Our results open up the exploration of nonstabilizerness with quantum computers.
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Stabilizer states constitute an important class of quantum states that can be generated from computational-basis states using Pauli operators and Clifford gates. Although they may exhibit substantial multipartite entanglement, quantum circuits restricted to stabilizer operations can be efficiently simulated classically and therefore cannot, by themselves, provide a quantum computational advantage. Such an advantage requires non-stabilizer resources, commonly referred to as quantum magic. In this paper, we investigate the non-stabilizerness of quantum states arising in a class of spin Hamiltonians by computing their stabilizer Rényi entropies. Using real-space renormalization-group techniques, we obtain a closed-form expression valid in the low-energy, large-distance regime. We analyze how quantum magic evolves under coarse-graining and explore its behavior across different parameter regimes and quantum phases.
Nonstabilizerness describes the distance of a quantum state to its closest stabilizer state. It is—like entanglement—a necessary resource for a quantum advantage over classical computing. We study nonstabilizerness, quantified by stabilizer entropy, in a hybrid quantum circuit with projective measurements and a controlled injection of non-Clifford resources. We discover a phase transition between a power law and constant scaling of nonstabilizerness with system size controlled by the rate of measurements. The same circuit also exhibits a phase transition in entanglement that appears, however, at a different critical measurement rate. This mechanism shows how, from the viewpoint of a quantum advantage, hybrid circuits can host multiple distinct transitions where not only entanglement, but also other nonlinear properties of the density matrix come into play. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Nonstabilizerness or `magic' is a key resource for quantum computing and a necessary condition for quantum advantage. Non-Clifford operations turn stabilizer states into resourceful states, where the amount of nonstabilizerness is quantified by resource measures such as stabilizer Rényi entropies (SREs). Here, we show that SREs saturate their maximum value at a critical number of non-Clifford operations. Close to the critical point SREs show universal behavior. Remarkably, the derivative of the SRE crosses at the same point independent of the number of qubits and can be rescaled onto a single curve. We find that the critical point depends non-trivially on Rényi index α . For random Clifford circuits doped with T-gates, the critical T-gate density scales independently of α . In contrast, for random Hamiltonian evolution, the critical time scales linearly with qubit number for α > 1 , while it is a constant for α < 1 . This highlights that α -SREs reveal fundamentally different aspects of nonstabilizerness depending on α : α -SREs with α < 1 relate to Clifford simulation complexity, while α > 1 probe the distance to the closest stabilizer state and approximate state certification cost via Pauli measurements. As technical contributions, we observe that the Pauli spectrum of random evolution can be approximated by two highly concentrated peaks which allows us to compute its SRE. Further, we introduce a class of random evolution that can be expressed as random Clifford circuits and rotations, where we provide its exact SRE. Our results opens up new approaches to characterize the complexity of quantum systems.
Quantum magic, quantified by nonstabilizerness, measures departures from stabilizer structure and underlies potential quantum speedups. We introduce an efficient classical framework for computing stabilizer Rényi entropies and stabilizer nullity of generic NNN-qubit wavefunctions. The method combines the fast Walsh-Hadamard transform with an exact partition of Pauli operators, reducing the average cost per sampled Pauli string from O(2N)\mathcal{O}(2^N)O(2N) to O(N)\mathcal{O}(N)O(N). We further develop a Monte Carlo estimator with Clifford preconditioning and find that the required number of samples shows no visible growth with NNN in our benchmarks. Applying the method to TTT-doped random Clifford circuits, we identify the scrambling ratio ηηη (Clifford gates per TTT gate) as the key parameter governing magic growth. Each TTT gate approaches its dilute-limit nonstabilizerness power with only modest Clifford scrambling. Our approach enables quantitative studies of magic in highly entangled states and long-time nonequilibrium dynamics.