We study classical shadows protocols based on randomized measurements in n -qubit entangled bases, generalizing the random Pauli measurement protocol ( n=1 ). We show that entangled measurements ( n≥2 ) enable nontrivial and potentially advantageous trade-offs in the sample complexity of learning Pauli expectation values. This is sharply illustrated by shadows based on two-qubit Bell measurements: the scaling of sample complexity with Pauli weight k improves quadratically (from ∼3k down to ∼3k/2 ) for many operators, while others become impossible to learn. Tuning the amount of entanglement in the measurement bases defines a family of protocols that interpolate between Pauli and Bell shadows, retaining some of the benefits of both. For large n , we show that randomized measurements in n -qubit GHZ bases further improve the best scaling to ∼(3/2)k , albeit on an increasingly restricted set of operators. Despite their simplicity and lower hardware requirements, these protocols can match or outperform recently-introduced "shallow shadows" in some practically-relevant Pauli estimation tasks.
We study classical shadows protocols based on randomized measurements in n -qubit entangled bases, generalizing the random Pauli measurement protocol ( n=1 ). We show that entangled measurements ( n≥2 ) enable nontrivial and potentially advantageous trade-offs in the sample complexity of learning Pauli expectation values. This is sharply illustrated by shadows based on two-qubit Bell measurements: the scaling of sample complexity with Pauli weight k improves quadratically (from ∼3k down to ∼3k/2 ) for many operators, while others become impossible to learn. Tuning the amount of entanglement in the measurement bases defines a family of protocols that interpolate between Pauli and Bell shadows, retaining some of the benefits of both. For large n , we show that randomized measurements in n -qubit GHZ bases further improve the best scaling to ∼(3/2)k , albeit on an increasingly restricted set of operators. Despite their simplicity and lower hardware requirements, these protocols can match or outperform recently-introduced "shallow shadows" in some practically-relevant Pauli estimation tasks.
Classical shadows are a powerful method for learning many properties of quantum states in a sample-efficient manner, by making use of randomized measurements. Here we study the sample complexity of learning the expectation value of Pauli operators via "shallow shadows," a recently proposed version of classical shadows in which the randomization step is effected by a local unitary circuit of variable depth t. We show that the shadow norm (the quantity controlling the sample complexity) is expressed in terms of properties of the Heisenberg time evolution of operators under the randomizing ("twirling") circuit-namely the evolution of the weight distribution characterizing the number of sites on which an operator acts nontrivially. For spatially contiguous Pauli operators of weight k, this entails a competition between two processes: operator spreading (whereby the support of an operator grows over time, increasing its weight) and operator relaxation (whereby the bulk of the operator develops an equilibrium density of identity operators, decreasing its weight). From this simple picture we derive (i) an upper bound on the shadow norm which, for depth t∼log(k), guarantees an exponential gain in sample complexity over the t=0 protocol in any spatial dimension, and (ii) quantitative results in one dimension within a mean-field approximation, including a universal subleading correction to the optimal depth, found to be in excellent agreement with infinite matrix product state numerical simulations. Our Letter connects fundamental ideas in quantum many-body dynamics to applications in quantum information science, and paves the way to highly optimized protocols for learning different properties of quantum states.
Efficiently learning expectation values of a quantum state using classical shadow tomography has become a fundamental task in quantum information theory. In a classical shadows protocol, one measures a state in a chosen basis W after it has evolved under a unitary transformation randomly sampled from a chosen distribution U. In this work we study the case where U corresponds to either local or global orthogonal Clifford gates, and W consists of real-valued vectors. Our results show that for various situations of interest, this ``real'' classical shadow protocol improves the sample complexity over the standard scheme based on general Clifford unitaries. For example, when one is interested in estimating the expectation values of arbitrary real-valued observables, global orthogonal Cliffords decrease the required number of samples by a factor of two. More dramatically, for k-local observables composed only of real-valued Pauli operators, sampling local orthogonal Cliffords leads to a reduction by an exponential-in-k factor in the sample complexity over local unitary Cliffords. Finally, we show that by measuring in a basis containing complex-valued vectors, orthogonal shadows can, in the limit of large system size, exactly reproduce the original unitary shadows protocol.
Abstract Efficiently learning expectation values of a quantum state using classical shadow tomography has become a fundamental task in quantum information theory. In a classical shadows protocol, one measures a state in a chosen basis W after it has evolved under a unitary transformation randomly sampled from a chosen distribution U . In this work we study the case where U corresponds to either local or global orthogonal Clifford gates, and W consists of real-valued vectors. Our results show that for various situations of interest, this ‘real’ classical shadow protocol improves the sample complexity over the standard scheme based on general Clifford unitaries. For example, when one is interested in estimating the expectation values of arbitrary real-valued observables, global orthogonal Cliffords typically decrease the required number of samples by a factor of two. More dramatically, for k -local observables composed only of real-valued Pauli operators, sampling local orthogonal Cliffords leads to a reduction by an exponential-in- k factor in the sample complexity over local unitary Cliffords. Finally, we show that by measuring in a basis containing complex-valued vectors, orthogonal shadows can, in the limit of large system size, exactly reproduce the original unitary shadows protocol.
Detecting multipartite entanglement in many qubit systems is measurement-intensive, motivating protocols that estimate only selected observables with provable efficiency. In this work we use the classical shadow protocol to study the sample complexity required to estimate a family of subsystem n-partite entanglement witness embedded in an larger N-qubit system. We derive ensemble dependent variance bounds that lead to qualitatively distinct scaling for the snapshots cost at fixed additive error ε with numerical simulations confirm these trends, exhibiting a clear crossover from Pauli favorable performance for local witness to Clifford favorable performance as the witness becomes more global.
We provide practical and powerful schemes for learning properties of a quantum state using a small number of measurements. Specifically, we present a randomized measurement scheme modulated by the depth of a random quantum circuit in one spatial dimension. This scheme interpolates between two known classical shadows schemes based on random Pauli measurements and random Clifford measurements. We focus on the regime where depth scales logarithmically in the system size and provide evidence that this retains the desirable sample complexity properties of both extremal schemes while also being experimentally feasible. We present methods for two key tasks; estimating expectation values of certain observables from generated classical shadows and, computing upper bounds on the depth-modulated shadow norm, thus providing rigorous guarantees on the accuracy of the output estimates. We achieve our findings by bringing together tools from shadow estimation, random circuits, and tensor networks.
Quantum platforms can realize many-body dynamics beyond classical simulation yet complete readout remains intractable: the cost of extracting accessible information scales exponentially with system size. Classical shadows and Bell sampling offer scalable, multi-observable estimation from randomized or entanglement-assisted measurements. Here we aim to push these ideas beyond static snapshots to dynamical correlators, including out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) and two-point functions. In particular, we introduce the notion of the shadow of an operator, defined as the classical shadow of the vectorized time-evolved operator. Pauli operator-shadows enable simultaneous estimation of all local OTOCs, while Clifford operator-shadows enable efficient simultaneous estimation of all two-point correlators. Alternatively, Bell sampling allows one to simultaneously compute all diagonal OTOCs. We also prove information-theoretic lower bounds for learning OTOCs, fully characterizing their query complexities in many cases, and yielding exponential separations that formalize when the vectorized approach provides measurement-efficiency advantages.