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arXiv:2512.13777 · PRX Quantum

Constant-Depth Clifford-Hierarchy Gates via Non-Abelian Surface Codes

Alison Warman, Sakura Schafer-Nameki

quant-phcond-mat.str-elhep-thmath-phSubmitted Dec 15, 2025• Announced Dec 17, 2025• 0 citations• Revised Sep 23, 2026 (v4)
v1 · Dec 15, 2025v2 · Jan 16, 2026v3 · Jun 3, 2026v4 · Sep 23, 2026
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Abstract

We present an entirely 2D constant-depth realization of topologically protected phase gates at any level of the Clifford hierarchy, and beyond, using non-Abelian surface codes. Our construction encodes a logical qubit in the quantum double $D(G)$ of a non-Abelian group $G$ on a triangular spatial patch. The logical gate is implemented by a constant-depth circuit constructed from stacking on the spatial region a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase specified by a group 2-cocycle and boundary counter-terms. The Bravyi-König theorem limits the unitary gates implementable by constant-depth quantum circuits on Pauli stabilizer codes in $D$ dimensions to the $D$-th level of the Clifford hierarchy. We bypass this limitation, by constructing constant-depth unitary gates at arbitrary levels of the Clifford hierarchy purely in 2D, without sacrificing locality or fault tolerance, at the cost of using the quantum double of a non-Abelian group $G$. Specifically, for $G = D_{4N}$, the dihedral group of order $8N$, we realize the phase gate $T^{1/N} = \mathrm{diag}(1, e^{iπ/(4N)})$ in the logical $\overline{Z}$ basis. In this context, we propose a non-abelian stabilizer group formalism, which we work out for dihedral groups. For $8N = 2^n$, the logical gate lies at the $n$-th level of the Clifford hierarchy and, importantly, has a qubit-only realization: we show that it can be constructed in terms of Clifford-hierarchy stabilizers for a code with $n$ physical qubits on each edge of the lattice. We also discuss code-switching to the double surface-code $D(\mathbb{Z}_2\times\mathbb{Z}_2)$, to complete a universal gate-set in this setup.

Journal reference
PRX Quantum 7 (2026) 3, 033029
DOI
10.1103/kfxl-rv7c
Comments
29 pages, v2: expanded discussion of stabilizer groups for non-abelian quantum doubles, v3: revised version, v4: published in PRX Quantum

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A fundamental problem in fault-tolerant quantum computation is the tradeoff between universality and dimensionality, exemplified by the the Bravyi-König bound for nnn-dimensional topological stabilizer codes. In this work, we extend topological Pauli stabilizer codes to a broad class of nnn-dimensional Clifford hierarchy stabilizer codes. These codes correspond to the (n+1)(n+1)(n+1)D Dijkgraaf-Witten gauge theories with non-Abelian topological order. We construct transversal non-Clifford gates through automorphism symmetries represented by cup products. In 2D, we obtain the first transversal non-Clifford logical gates including T and CS for Clifford stabilizer codes, using the automorphism of the twisted Z23\mathbb{Z}_2^3Z23​ gauge theory (equivalent to D4\mathbb{D}_4D4​ topological order). We also combine it with the just-in-time decoder to fault-tolerantly prepare the logical T magic state in O(d)O(d)O(d) rounds via code switching. In 3D, we construct a transversal logical T\sqrt{\text{T}}T​ gate in a non-Clifford stabilizer code at the third level of the Clifford hierarchy, located on a tetrahedron corresponding to a twisted Z24\mathbb{Z}_2^4Z24​ gauge theory. Our constructions surpass the Bravyi-König bound by achieving the logical gates in the (n+1)(n+1)(n+1)-th level of Clifford hierarchy in nnn spatial dimension.
We introduce group surface codes, which are a natural generalization of the Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ surface code, and equivalent to quantum double models of finite groups with specific boundary conditions. We show that group surface codes can be leveraged to perform non-Clifford gates in Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ surface codes, thus enabling universal computation along with established means of performing logical Clifford gates. Moreover, for suitably chosen groups, we demonstrate that arbitrary reversible classical gates can be implemented transversally in the group surface code. We present the logical operations in terms of a set of elementary logical operations, which include transversal logical gates, a means of transferring encoded information into and out of group surface codes, and preparation and readout. By composing these elementary operations, we implement a wide variety of logical gates and provide a unified perspective on recent constructions in the literature for sliding group surface codes and preparing magic states. We furthermore use tensor networks inspired by ZX-calculus to construct spacetime implementations of the elementary operations. This spacetime perspective also allows us to establish explicit correspondences with topological gauge theories. Our work extends recent efforts in performing universal quantum computation in topological orders without the braiding of anyons, and shows how certain group surface codes allow us to bypass the restrictions set by the Bravyi-König theorem, which limits the computational power of topological Pauli stabilizer models.
Recent work has shown that quantum double models can be used to circumvent the Bravyi-Koenig bound. In particular, this is achieved through code-switching protocols in which non-Pauli stabilizer phases appear as intermediate codes. We introduce the XCd(k)X\mathcal C^{(k)}_dXCd(k)​ stabilizer formalism, which generalizes the Pauli stabilizer formalism by combining Pauli-XXX operators with diagonal operators drawn from a fixed level kkk of the Clifford hierarchy on prime-dimensional qudits. This yields a natural class of beyond-Pauli stabilizer models, including many twisted quantum double phases. We classify a large class of these XCd(k)X\mathcal C^{(k)}_dXCd(k)​ stabilizer states, showing that they are uniform superpositions over affine-linear subspaces with diagonal phases. In particular, when the stabilizers of a state require operators from level kkk of the Clifford hierarchy, we show that the diagonal gates required to produce the phases in the wavefunction sit one level higher. We further show that every 2D twisted quantum double Dω(Zpn){\cal D}^ω(\mathbb{Z}_p^n)Dω(Zpn​) with ωωω a product of type-III cocycles and ppp an odd prime admits a realization using only Clifford (k=2k=2k=2) stabilizers, and we conjecture that phases where ωωω contains a type-I or type-II cocycle require level-ppp Clifford-hierarchy stabilizers for ppp-dimensional qudits. Finally, we demonstrate that a pair of qudit toric codes may be deterministically prepared in a logical magic state by measuring XCd(k)X\mathcal C^{(k)}_dXCd(k)​ stabilizers. Together, these results provide a concrete stabilizer framework for topological codes beyond Pauli stabilizer models and their logical gates.
We propose protocols to implement non-Clifford logical gates between stabilizer codes by entangling into a non-Abelian topological order as an intermediate step. Generalizing previous approaches, we provide a framework that generates a large class of non-Clifford and nondiagonal logical gates between qudit surface codes by gauging the topological symmetry of symmetry-enriched topological orders. As our main example, we concretely detail a protocol that utilizes the quantum double of S 3 to generate a controlled-charge-conjugation ( C C ) gate between a qubit and qutrit surface code. Both the preparation of non-Abelian states and logical state injection between the Abelian and non-Abelian codes are executed via finite-depth quantum circuits with measurement and feedforward. We discuss aspects of the fault tolerance of our protocol, presenting insights into how to construct a heralded decoder for the quantum double of S 3 . We also outline how analogous protocols can be used to obtain logical gates between qudit surface codes by entangling into D ( G ) , where G is a semidirect product of Abelian groups. This work serves as a step toward classifying the computational power of non-Abelian quantum phases beyond the paradigm of anyon braiding on near-term quantum devices.
We develop a framework for logical computation with qLDPC codes that places logical Pauli, Clifford, and non-Clifford operations on the same footing. This brings the simple homological description of Pauli logicals to the patchwork landscape of logical Clifford and non-Clifford operations, providing a tool for the discovery of new logical gates. In particular, we define the chain map hierarchy: a family of chain complexes whose homology classes encode logical unitary and code surgery operations at any level of the Clifford hierarchy, precisely analogous to the chain complex description of Pauli logicals. Consequently, intuition for Pauli logicals can be leveraged to discover new logical operations on qLDPC codes. For instance, the familiar ability to deform Pauli logicals with stabilizers---i.e. boundaries of the chain complex---becomes a way to search for constant-depth unitary implementations of (non-)Clifford logical gates. Using this strategy, we discover constant-depth unitary implementations of the full logical Clifford group on any number of blocks of the 2D toric code, including within a single block, and addressable logical CCZ gates on any triple of logical qubits on any number of blocks of the 3D toric code. Beyond manifold codes, we find addressable non-Clifford gates on codes with many encoded qubits. The chain map hierarchy naturally encompasses and extends other constructions of logical gadgets, for instance providing a universal parameterization of cup products. As such, our work provides a unified, useful, and intuitive language for computing with qLDPC codes.
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