Practical implementation of arbitrary nonlocal controlled-unitary gate via indefinite causal order
Wen-Qiang Liu, Zi-Han Zheng, Zhang-Qi Yin +1 more
Quantum gate teleportation enables the implementation of nonlocal quantum operations without direct interactions between distant nodes. We propose an efficient protocol for implementing arbitrary controlled-unitary (CU) gates acting on two spatially separated parties via indefinite causal order (ICO). By establishing a maximally entanglement between two remote nodes and coherently superposing orders of single-qubit gates, our protocol circumvents the drawback of complex local two-qubit operations. This ICO-based approach enables full programmability of CU gates by adjusting the inherent single-qubit operations, offering advantages over conventional fixed causal-order methods in terms of reduced circuit complexity and improved experimental flexibility. Furthermore, we develop an optical construction to implement the polarization CU gate using a stable and reciprocal Sagnac interferometer. Our work establishes a practical framework for scalable distributed quantum computation with flexible operations.
quant-pharXiv:2603.08073•New Journal of Physics•Mar 10, 2026•2 citations