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arXiv:2604.16285

How to unitarily map between any two pure states with a single closed-form exponential

Peter T. J. Bradshaw, Marcus Gouveia, Jonte R. Hance

quant-phmath-phSubmitted Apr 17, 2026• Announced Apr 20, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

It is well-known that any two pure quantum states (in the same Hilbert space) can be mapped to any other using unitary transformations. However, previous approaches to this problem required two explicit bases for the Hilbert space, one each for the initial and target states, and thus their complexity necessarily scales with the dimension of the Hilbert space. In this Letter, we show how to utilize novel algebraic methods to construct a closed-form exponential unitary transformation which achieves this in general, using only a single unitary generator. This construction is independent of any bases and agnostic to the dimension of the Hilbert space. We highlight the usefulness of this tool for studying relationships between systems of pure states in quantum information theory, as well in elementary analyses of quantum circuits and unitary operators.

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It is well-known that any two pure quantum states (in the same Hilbert space) can be mapped to any other using unitary transformations. However, previous approaches to this problem required two explicit bases for the Hilbert space, one each for the initial and target states, and thus their complexity necessarily scales with the dimension of the Hilbert space. In this Letter, we show how to utilize novel algebraic methods to construct a closed-form exponential unitary transformation which achieves this in general, using only a single unitary generator. This construction is independent of any bases and agnostic to the dimension of the Hilbert space. We highlight the usefulness of this tool for studying relationships between systems of pure states in quantum information theory, as well in elementary analyses of quantum circuits and unitary operators.
Pure states of three-qubit quantum systems are represented by eight-dimensional complex vectors, whereas their unitary transformations are described by 8×88 \times 88×8 complex matrices. Motivated by this correspondence, we extend our algebraic model for two-qubit systems to eight-dimensional spaces endowed with commutative and associative multiplication. To each eight-dimensional number we assign a matrix and prove that the resulting correspondence is a homomorphic bijection. We derive conditions under which the associated matrix is unitary and hence represents a three-qubit quantum gate. This leads to a specific algebraic notion of a unitary state: a normalized state whose multiplication matrix is unitary. We construct 16,384 basis spaces; within each fixed space, multiplication generates a commuting family of quantum gates. For any two unitary states in the class considered, we give an explicit transition-gate construction within one of these algebraic families. For real components, the unitary states in a representative basis space form a union of thirty-two four-dimensional manifolds in R8\mathbb{R}^{8}R8. The construction therefore yields new structured classes of three-qubit unitary operators and invariant state sets, while its extension to larger multiqubit systems remains open.
Pure states of two-qubit quantum systems are described by a four-dimensional vector of complex numbers, and unitary operators transferring a two-qubit quantum system from one state to another have the form of a 4 × 4 matrix with complex elements. This fact brings to mind the idea of studying the spaces of four-dimensional numbers with complex components. Moreover, the results obtained by the authors for four-dimensional numbers with real components inspire some optimism. In this paper we construct four-dimensional spaces of complex numbers by analogy with four-dimensional spaces of real numbers. Each four-dimensional number is mapped to a matrix formed from its components and it is proved that the constructed mapping is a bijection and a homomorphism. In the space of fourdimensional numbers, of the eight basis elements, half are real and half are imaginary. The presence of such symmetry distinguish these spaces from the space of quaternions, in which one basis element is real and the rest are imaginary. The symmetry of the basis numbers makes these spaces a natural generalization of one-dimensional and two-dimensional (complex) algebra. The conditions under which the corresponding matrices are gates for two-qubit quantum systems are defined. The notion of unitary state of a two-qubit quantum system is introduced, to which various gates from commutative groups of gates correspond. It is shown that any gate of a unitary state transforms a unitary state into a unitary state and a non-unitary state into a non-unitary state. Almost all gates used in the construction of quantum circuits, in particular H, SWAP, CX, CY, CZ, have the same properties. The problem of searching for a gate that transfers a quantum system from one unitary state to another unitary state has been solved. Thus, with the help of fourdimensional spaces of complex numbers it was possible to construct whole classes of two-qubit gates, which opens new possibilities for the construction of quantum algorithms. The results obtained have important theoretical and practical implications for quantum computing.
We introduce a general mapping for encoding quantum communication protocols involving pure states of multiple qubits, unitary transformations, and projective measurements into another set of protocols that employ coherent states of light in a superposition of optical modes, linear optics transformations and measurements with single-photon threshold detectors. This provides a general framework for transforming a wide class of protocols in quantum communication into a form in which they can be implemented with current technology. In particular, we apply the mapping to quantum communication complexity, providing general conditions under which quantum protocols can be implemented with coherent states and linear optics while retaining exponential separations in communication complexity compared to the classical case. Finally, we make use of our results to construct a protocol for the Hidden Matching problem that retains the known exponential gap between quantum and classical one-way communication complexity.
Two types of canonical transformations in two-mode classical phase space are mapped into the quantum mechanical Hilbert space to produce some new normally ordered unitary operators. These operators are evaluated in the coordinate (momentum) representations using the "integration within ordered product" technique, and the mapping is manifestly apparent in the derivation. New generalized coherent states are constructed in terms of these operators, and the uncertainty relations for these states are analysed.
To implement any quantum operation (a.k.a. “superoperator” or “CP map”) on a d-dimensional quantum system, it is enough to apply a suitable overall unitary transformation to the system and a d2-dimensional environment which is initialized in a fixed pure state. It has been suggested that a d-dimensional environment might be enough if we could initialize the environment in a mixed state of our choosing. In this note we show with elementary means that certain explicit quantum operations cannot be realized in this way. Our counterexamples map some pure states to pure states, giving strong and easily manageable conditions on the overall unitary transformation. Everything works in the more general setting of quantum operations from d-dimensional to d′-dimensional spaces, so we place our counterexamples within this more general framework.
The last two decades have seen an enormous increase in the computational power of digital computers. This was due to the rapid technical development in manufacturing processes and controlling semiconducting structures on submicron scale. Concurrently, the electric circuits have encountered the first signs of the realm of quantum mechanics. Those effects may induce noise and thus they are typically considered harmful. However, the manipulation of the coherent quantum states might turn out be the basis of powerful computers – quantum computers. There, the computation is encoded into the unitary time evolution of a quantum mechanical state vector. Eventually, quantum mechanics could enable one, for example, to read secret electronic messages which are encrypted by the widely employed RSA cryptosystem – a task which is extremely laborious for the current digital computers. This thesis presents a theoretical study of the coherent manipulations of pure quantum states in a quantum register, that is, quantum algorithms. An implementation of a quantum algorithm involves the initialization of the input state and its manipulation with quantum gates followed by the measurements. The physical implementation of each gate requires that it is decomposed into low-level gates whose physical realizations are explicitly known. Here, the problem is examined from two directions. Firstly, the numerical optimization scheme for controlling time-evolution of a closed quantum system is discussed. This yields a method for implementing quantum gates acting on up to three quantum bits, qubits. The approach is independent of the physical realization of the quantum computer, but it is considered explicitly for a proposed inductively coupled Josephson charge qubit register. Secondly, the techniques of numerical matrix computation are utilized to find a general method for decomposing an arbitrary n-qubit gate into a sequence of elementary gates, which act on one or two qubits. The results of this thesis help to improve the implementation of quantum algorithms. The quantum circuit construction developed in the thesis is the first one to achieve the asymptotically minimal complexity in the number of elementary gates. In context of acceleration of quantum algorithms we present a gate-level study of Shor's algorithm and show how to accelerate the algorithm by merging several elementary gates into multiqubit gates. Finally, the requirements set by the resulting gate array are compared to the properties of superconducting qubits. This allows us to discuss the feasibility of the Josephson charge qubit register, for instance, as hardware for breaking the RSA cryptosystem.