Abstract Circuit depth optimization is crucial for implementing quantum algorithms in practical systems. The decomposition of ‐qubit Toffoli gate is continually optimized since this gate is a fundamental component for many quantum algorithms. Without any ancilla, ‐qubit Toffoli gate can be decomposed by standard gates with circuit depth . Here, the decomposition is further optimized and its circuit depth is reduced to . The decomposition is equivalent to ‐qubit Toffoli gate up to an overall phase and also does not need any ancilla.
Multiqubit quantum gates are natural quantum operations derived from various decompositions of quantum evolutions. Recently, linear-depth quantum circuits were proposed for an arbitrary
n-qubit Toffoli gate with ancillary qubits [M. Saeedi and M. Pedram, Phys. Rev. A 87, 062318 (2013)]. Their circuits are based on an equivalent representation of the not gate regardless of the global phase. However, we find that this equivalence cannot be extended to the controlled-not gate or the
n-qubit Toffoli gate. By reevaluating their circuits, we argue that their linear-depth quantum circuits could realize the joint operations of an
n-qubit Toffoli gate and an
n-qubit phase-flip gate.
Since an n-qubit circuit consisting of CNOT gates can have up to
Ω(n2/logn) CNOT gates, it is natural to expect that
Ω(n2/logn) Toffoli gates are needed to apply a controlled version of such a circuit. We show that the Toffoli count can be reduced to at most n. The Toffoli depth can also be reduced to O(1), at the cost of 2n Toffoli gates, even without using any ancilla or measurement. In fact, using a measurement-based uncomputation, the Toffoli depth can be further reduced to 1. From this, we give two corollaries: any controlled Clifford circuit can be implemented with O(1) T-depth, and any Clifford+T circuit with T-depth D can be controlled with T-depth O(D), even without ancillas. As an application, we show how to catalyze a rotation by any angle up to precision
ε in T-depth exactly 1 using a universal
⌈log2(8/ε)⌉-qubit catalyst state.
Multi-bit Toffoli gates form an essential quantum gate class for quantum algorithms. They should be efficiently decomposed into elementary single- or multi-qubit quantum gates, such as CNOT, T, and Hadarmard, for a scalable implementation of a quantum algorithm. We propose an engineering method for the practical synthesis of a multi-bit Toffoli gate. Two optimization models and their closed-form solutions are presented for optimal decomposition of the multi-bit Toffoli gate. These models are based on linearized multi-objective integer programming with parameters such as the number of target ancillae, ancillae states, and basis gates. The proposed method supports the systematic handling of quantum circuit constraints, including the total number of available qubits and maximum circuit depth, which depend on various quantum hardware specifications. Our approach exhibits promise in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum environment by providing a rapid and optimal method for synthesizing multi-bit Toffoli gates in diverse and unpredictable quantum hardware specifications.
The synthesis of quantum operators involves decomposing general quantum gates into the gate set supported by a given quantum device. Multi-controlled gates are essential components in this process. In this work, we present an improved decomposition of multi-controlled NOT gates with logarithmic depth using a single ancilla qubit while reducing the ancillary resource requirements compared to previous work. We further introduce a relative-phase multi-controlled NOT gate that eliminates the need for ancillas. Building on these results, we optimize a previously proposed decomposition of multi-target, multi-controlled special unitary SU(2) gates by identifying the presence of a conditionally clean qubit. Additionally, we introduce the best-known decomposition of multi-controlled approximate unitary U(2) gates, which do not require ancilla qubits. This approach significantly reduces the overall circuit depth and CNOT count while preserving an adjustable error parameter, yielding a more efficient and scalable solution for synthesizing large controlled-unitary gates. Our method is particularly suitable for both NISQ and fault-tolerant quantum architectures. All software developed in this project is freely available.
We achieve the first constant-depth circuit for arbitrary single-qubit gate synthesis. Unlike prior approaches, the construction is fully unitary and requires no pre-supplied catalyst. For any constant
δ>0, it
ε-approximates an arbitrary single-qubit gate using
O(log1+δ(1/ε)) clean ancillae, Hadamard and
T single-qubit gates,
O(log(1/ε))-width generalized Toffoli gates, and sublogarithmic-width Fan-Out gates. We further eliminate Fan-Out entirely, showing that Hadamard,
T, and generalized Toffoli gates alone suffice for constant-depth synthesis. When restricted to the standard bounded-width gate model, our construction has depth
O(loglog(1/ε)), and we prove a matching
Ω(loglog(1/ε))-depth lower bound. Overall, we establish that
Θ(loglog(1/ε))-depth is unavoidable with only bounded-width gates, yet allowing even logarithmic-width multi-qubit gates suffices to achieve constant-depth synthesis.
These results also reveal new structure in shallow quantum circuit complexity. We give a depth-preserving real simulation of bounded-error decision computation, showing that every depth-
d QAC circuit can be simulated in depth
O(d) using only Hadamard,
X, and generalized Toffoli gates. Thus arbitrary single-qubit rotations and complex amplitudes do not increase the bounded-error decision power of QAC, even at constant depth. In particular, this reduces the long-standing conjecture Parity
∈/QAC
0 to proving a Parity lower bound against circuits consisting only of Hadamard,
X, and generalized Toffoli gates. More generally, this real normal form exposes a direct correspondence between the standard shallow-depth quantum circuit hierarchy and a hierarchy of Forrelation circuits with restricted oracle families.