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arXiv:2409.06862 · IEEE Transactions on Information Theory

Concentration of Quantum Channels With Random Kraus Operators via Matrix Bernstein Inequality

Motohisa Fukuda

Published May 5, 2025• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract. In this study, we generate quantum channels with random Kraus operators to typically obtain almost twirling quantum channels and quantum expanders. To prove the concentration phenomena, we use matrix Bernstein’s inequality. In this way, our random models do not utilize Haar-distributed unitary matrices or Gaussian matrices. Rather, as in the preceding research, we use unitary t-designs to generate mixed tensor-product unitary channels acting on Cdt. Although our bounds in Schatten p-norm are valid only for 1 ≤p≤ 2, we show that they are typically quantum ϵ-twirling channels with the tail bound proportional to 1/poly(dt), while such bounds were previously constants. The number of required Kraus operators was also improved by powers of logdandt, to be proportional todtlogd/ϵ2. Such random quantum channels are also typically quantum expanders, but the number of Kraus operators must grow proportionally totlogdin our case. Finally, a new non-unital model of super-operators generated by bounded and isotropic random Kraus operators was introduced, which can be typically rectified to yield almost randomizing quantum channels and quantum expanders.

DOI
10.1109/tit.2025.3567085

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Abstract In this work we investigate how quantum expanders (i.e., quantum channels with few Kraus operators but a large spectral gap) can be constructed from unitary designs. Concretely, we prove that a random quantum channel whose Kraus operators are independent unitaries sampled from a 222-design measure is with high probability an optimal expander (in the sense that its spectral gap is as large as possible). More generally, we show that, if these Kraus operators are independent unitaries of the form U⊗kU^{\otimes k}U⊗k, with UUU sampled from a 2k2k2k-design measure, then the corresponding random quantum channel is typically an optimal kkk-copy tensor product expander, a concept introduced by Harrow and Hastings (Quant. Inf. Comput. 2009).
For large d, we study quantum channels on C d obtained by selecting ran- domly N independent Kraus operators according to a probability measure µ on the unitary group U(d). When µ is the Haar measure, we show that for N d/e 2 , such a channel is e-randomizing with high probability, which means that it maps every state within distance e/d (in operator norm) of the maximally mixed state. This slightly improves on a result by Hayden, Leung, Shor and Winter by optimizing their discreti- zation argument. Moreover, for general µ, we obtain an e-randomizing channel provided N d (log d) 6 /e 2 .F ord = 2 k (k qubits), this includes Kraus operators obtained by ten- soring k random Pauli matrices. This leads to more efficient constructions of almost randomizing channels. The proof uses recent results on empirical processes in Banach spaces.
We introduce the concept of quantum tensor product expanders. These generalize the concept of quantum expanders, which are quantum maps that are efficient randomizers and use only a small number of Kraus operators. Quantum tensor product expanders act on several copies of a given system, where the Kraus operators are tensor products of the Kraus operator on a single system. We begin with the classical case, and show that a classical two-copy expander can be used to produce a quantum expander. We then discuss the quantum case and give applications to the Solovay-Kitaev problem. We give probabilistic constructions in both classical and quantum cases, giving tight bounds on the expectation value of the largest nontrivial eigenvalue in the quantum case.
In this work, we prove a lower bound on the difference between the first and second singular values of quantum channels induced by random isometries, that is tight in the scaling of the number of Kraus operators. This allows us to give an upper bound on the difference between the first and second largest (in modulus) eigenvalues of random channels with same large input and output dimensions for finite number of Kraus operators k≥169k\geq 169k≥169. Moreover, we show that these random quantum channels are quantum expanders, answering a question posed by Hastings. As an application, we show that ground states of infinite 1D spin chains, which are well-approximated by matrix product states, fulfill a principle of maximum entropy.
Random many-body states and matrices are both a useful tool to model certain physical systems and an important asset for quantum computation. Realizing them, however, generally requires an exponential (in system size) amount of resources. Recent research has presented a way out by showing that one can generate random states and matrices, or more precisely a controlled approximation of them, by applying a quantum circuit built in terms of few-body unitary gates. Most of this research has been focussed on the case of quantum circuits composed by fully random unitary gates. Here we consider what happens for circuits that, instead, involve a minimal degree of randomness. Specifically, we concentrate on two different settings: (a) brickwork quantum circuits with a single one-qudit random matrix at a boundary; (b) brickwork quantum circuits with fixed interactions but random one-qudit gates everywhere. We show that, for any given initial state, (a) and (b) produce a distribution of states approaching the Haar distribution in the limit of large circuit depth. More precisely, we show that the moments of the distribution produced by our circuits can approximate the ones of the Haar distribution in a depth proportional to the system size. Interestingly we find that in both Cases (a) and (b) the relaxation to the Haar distribution occurs in two steps—this is in contrast with what happens in fully random circuits. Moreover, we show that choosing appropriately the fixed interactions, for example taking the local gate to be a dual-unitary gate with high enough entangling power, minimally random circuits produce a Haar random distribution more rapidly than fully random circuits. In particular, dual-unitary circuits with maximal entangling power—i.e. perfect tensors—appear to provide the optimal quantum state design preparation for any design number. Our results also suggest that the minimally random settings (a) and (b) give an optimal framework to prepare unitary designs, i.e., random unitary matrices.
In this paper, we study the behavior of the output of pure entangled states after being transformed by a product of conjugate random unitary channels. This study is motivated by the counterexamples by Hastings [Superadditivity of communication capacity using entangled inputs, Nat. Phys.5 (2009) 255–257] and Hayden–Winter [Counterexamples to the maximal p-norm multiplicativity conjecture for all p > 1, Comm. Math. Phys.284(1) (2008) 263–280] to the additivity problems. In particular, we study in depth the difference of behavior between random unitary channels and generic random channels. In the case where the number of unitary operators is fixed, we compute the limiting eigenvalues of the output states. In the case where the number of unitary operators grows linearly with the dimension of the input space, we show that the eigenvalue distribution converges to a limiting shape that we characterize with free probability tools. In order to perform the required computations, we need a systematic way of dealing with moment problems for random matrices whose blocks are i.i.d. Haar distributed unitary operators. This is achieved by extending the graphical Weingarten calculus introduced in [B. Collins and I. Nechita, Random quantum channels I: Graphical calculus and the Bell state phenomenon, Comm. Math. Phys.297(2) (2010) 345–370].