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arXiv:2510.07100

Sequential quantum processes with group symmetries

Dmitry Grinko, Satoshi Yoshida, Mio Murao, Māris Ozols

Published Oct 8, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

Symmetry plays a crucial role in the design and analysis of quantum protocols. This result shows a canonical circuit decomposition of a $(G\times H)$-invariant quantum comb for compact groups $G$ and $H$ using the corresponding Clebsch--Gordan transforms, which naturally extends to the $G$-covariant quantum comb. By using this circuit decomposition, we propose a parametrized quantum comb with group symmetry, and derive the optimal quantum comb which transforms an unknown unitary operation $U\in \mathrm{SU}(d)$ into its inverse $U^\dagger$ or transpose $U^\top$. From numerics, we find a deterministic and exact unitary transposition protocol for $d=3$ with $7$ queries to $U$. This protocol improves upon the protocol shown in the previous work, which requires $13$ queries to $U$.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2510.07100

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Quantum combs play a vital role in characterizing and transforming quantum processes, with wide-ranging applications in quantum information processing. However, obtaining the explicit quantum circuit for the desired quantum comb remains a challenging problem. We propose PQComb, a novel framework that employs parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs) or quantum neural networks to harness the full potential of quantum combs for diverse quantum process transformation tasks. This method is well-suited for near-term quantum devices and can be applied to various tasks in quantum machine learning. As a notable application, we present two streamlined protocols for the time-reversal simulation of unknown qubit unitary evolutions, reducing the ancilla qubit overhead from six to three compared to the previous best-known method. We also extend PQComb to solve the problems of qutrit unitary transformation and channel discrimination. Furthermore, we demonstrate the hardware efficiency and robustness of our qubit unitary inversion protocol under realistic noise simulations of IBM-Q superconducting quantum hardware, yielding a significant improvement in average similarity over the previous protocol under practical regimes. PQComb’s versatility and potential for broader applications in quantum machine learning pave the way for more efficient and practical solutions to complex quantum tasks.
Abstract. A sequential network of quantum operations is efficiently described by its quantum comb [1], a non-negative operator with suitable normalization constraints. Here we analyze the case of networks enjoying symmetry with respect to the action of a given group of physical transformations, introducing the notion of covariant combs and testers, and proving the basic structure theorems for these objects. As an application, we discuss the optimal alignment of reference frames (without preestablished common references) with multiple rounds of quantum communication, showing that i) allowing an arbitrary amount of classical communication does not improve the alignment, and ii) a single round of quantum communication is sufficient. A quantum comb [1] describes a quantum network with N open slots in which an ordered sequence of variable quantum devices can be inserted, thus programming the quantum operation of the resulting circuit. Mathematically, a comb implements an admissible supermap [2, 3], that transforms an input network of N quantum operations into an output quantum operation. Having at disposal a suitable formalism opens the possibility of optimizing the architecture of quantum circuits for a large number of computational, cryptographic, and game-theoretical tasks, such as discrimination of
We present an efficient family of quantum circuits for a fundamental primitive in quantum information theory, the Schur transform. The Schur transform on n d-dimensional quantum systems is a transform between a standard computational basis to a labelling related to the representation theory of the symmetric and unitary groups. If we desire to implement the Schur transform to an accuracy of e-1, then our circuit construction uses a number of gates which is polynomial in n, d and log(e-1). The key tool in our construction is a poly(d, log n, log(e-1)) algorithm for the ud Clebsch-Gordan transform. Our efficient circuit construction renders numerous protocols in quantum information theory computationally tractable and yields a new possible approach to quantum algorithms which is distinct from the standard paradigm of the quantum Fourier transform.
A sequential network of quantum operations is efficiently described by its quantum comb [1], a non‐negative operator with suitable normalization constraints. Here we analyze the case of networks enjoying symmetry with respect to the action of a given group of physical transformations, introducing the notion of covariant combs and testers, and proving the basic structure theorems for these objects. As an application, we discuss the optimal alignment of reference frames (without pre‐established common references) with multiple rounds of quantum communication, showing that i) allowing an arbitrary amount of classical communication does not improve the alignment, and ii) a single round of quantum communication is sufficient.
Transducers (Belovs, Jeffery and Yolcu, 2024) are a quantum computing framework describing a quantum algorithm as a unitary converting an input state into a target state using a catalyst, an auxiliary vector that is left unchanged. They are a powerful tool in quantum algorithm design, especially in the context of quantum query complexity: feasible points of the (dual) adversary semidefinite program directly translate into transducers and the optimal transduction complexity is equal to the adversary bound, i.e. the Las Vegas complexity, which is known to characterize bounded-error quantum query complexity. Moreover, contrary to bounded-error algorithms, transducers compose exactly, which limits overheads due to controlling errors in algorithms constructed by composition. Constructing efficient, let alone optimal, transducers in terms of quantum query complexity nevertheless remains a hard task since it still requires solving the adversary SDP and constructing the unitary to obtain an explicit algorithm. In this paper, we show how using the symmetry group of state-conversion problems simplifies both steps. First, using a symmetrization argument, we prove an optimal catalyst can always be chosen covariant under a representation of the symmetry group. Second, we prove that the transducer intertwines two different representations of the group and can thus be chosen block diagonal in the isotypic decomposition of the Hilbert space. Using those methods, we then derive optimal transducers, with optimal constants, for different widely used quantum algorithmic primitives, such as unstructured search, amplitude amplification and amplitude estimation. Our approach extends previous work on the use of representation theory to compute adversary lower bounds (Høyer, Lee, and {\v S}palek, 2007; Ambainis, Magnin, Roetteler and Roland, 2011) to the systematic construction of optimal algorithms.
Schur sampling is a fundamental primitive for extracting permutation-invariant information from many-body quantum systems and has broad applications in quantum information science. Circuit-based implementations typically rely on coherent representation-theoretic operations such as Clebsch-Gordan transforms, generalized phase estimation, or quantum Fourier transforms over the symmetric group. We show that unitary Schur sampling of arbitrary permutation-invariant mixed states on nnn ddd-dimensional qudits can instead be implemented using only pairwise SWAP tests, namely, two-qudit projective measurements onto the symmetric and antisymmetric subspaces. Our protocol achieves error εεε in diamond distance using O(nmin⁡{n,d}3log⁡2(n/ε))O(n\min\{n,d\}^{3}\log^2(n/ε))O(nmin{n,d}3log2(n/ε)) random SWAP tests. The central idea is to repeatedly identify and extract the largest antisymmetric subsystem. This turns unitary Schur sampling into a search for antisymmetry and gives the algorithm a natural interpretation as a stochastic traversal of a Young diagram. The protocol preserves the SU(d)\mathrm{SU}(d)SU(d)-irrep state while preparing a canonical pure state in the multiplicity subsystem. As an application, we consider quantum purity amplification (QPA), in which multiple noisy copies of a pure quantum state are combined to produce a state of higher purity. We show that the optimal purified state can be obtained by retaining a single designated output qudit and discarding the rest.