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SIAM Journal on Computing

Self-Testing of Universal and Fault-Tolerant Sets of Quantum Gates

Wim van Dam, Frédéric Magniez, Michele Mosca, Miklós Sántha

Published Jan 1, 2007• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We consider the design of self-testers for quantum gates. A self-tester for the gates $\boldsymbol{F}_1,\ldots, \boldsymbol{F}_m$ is a procedure that, given any gates $\boldsymbol{G}_1, \ldots, \boldsymbol{G}_m$, decides with high probability if each $\boldsymbol{G}_i$ is close to $\boldsymbol{F}_i$. This decision has to rely only on measuring in the computational basis the effect of iterating the gates on the classical states. It turns out that, instead of individual gates, we can design only procedures for families of gates. To achieve our goal we borrow some elegant ideas of the theory of program testing: We characterize the gate families by specific properties, develop a theory of robustness for them, and show that they lead to self-testers. In particular we prove that the universal and fault-tolerant set of gates consisting of a Hadamard gate, a $\mathrm{c\text{-}NOT}$ gate, and a phase rotation gate of angle $\pi/4$ is self-testable.

DOI
10.1137/s0097539702404377

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We consider the design of self-testers for quantum gates. A self-tester for the gates F1,…,Fm\boldsymbol{F}_1,\ldots, \boldsymbol{F}_mF1​,…,Fm​ is a procedure that, given any gates G1,…,Gm\boldsymbol{G}_1, \ldots, \boldsymbol{G}_mG1​,…,Gm​, decides with high probability if each Gi\boldsymbol{G}_iGi​ is close to Fi\boldsymbol{F}_iFi​. This decision has to rely only on measuring in the computational basis the effect of iterating the gates on the classical states. It turns out that, instead of individual gates, we can design only procedures for families of gates. To achieve our goal we borrow some elegant ideas of the theory of program testing: We characterize the gate families by specific properties, develop a theory of robustness for them, and show that they lead to self-testers. In particular we prove that the universal and fault-tolerant set of gates consisting of a Hadamard gate, a c-NOT\mathrm{c\text{-}NOT}c-NOT gate, and a phase rotation gate of angle π/4\pi/4π/4 is self-testable.
We consider the design of self-testers for quantum gates. A self-tester for the gates F_1,...,F_m is a classical procedure that, given any gates G_1,...,G_m, decides with high probability if each G_i is close to F_i. This decision has to rely only on measuring in the computational basis the effect of iterating the gates on the classical states. It turns out that instead of individual gates, we can only design procedures for families of gates. To achieve our goal we borrow some elegant ideas of the theory of program testing: we characterize the gate families by specific properties, we develop a theory of robustness for them, and show that they lead to self-testers. In particular we prove that the universal and fault-tolerant set of gates consisting of a Hadamard gate, a c-NOT gate, and a phase rotation gate of angle pi/4 is self-testable.
A novel universal and fault-tolerant basis (set of gates) for quantum computation is described. Such a set is necessary to perform quantum computation in a realistic noisy environment. The new basis consists of two single-qubit gates (Hadamard and σz1/4{σ_z}^{1/4}σz​1/4), and one double-qubit gate (Controlled-NOT). Since the set consisting of Controlled-NOT and Hadamard gates is not universal, the new basis achieves universality by including only one additional elementary (in the sense that it does not include angles that are irrational multiples of πππ) single-qubit gate, and hence, is potentially the simplest universal basis that one can construct. We also provide an alternative proof of universality for the only other known class of universal and fault-tolerant basis proposed by Shor and by Kitaev.
A novel universal and fault-tolerant basis (set of gates) for quantum computation is described. Such a set is necessary to perform quantum computation in a realistic noisy environment. The new basis consists of two single-qubit gates (Hadamard and /spl sigma//sub z//sup 1/4 /) and one double-qubit gate (Controlled-NOT). Since the set consisting of Controlled-NOT and Hadamard gates is not universal, the new basis achieves universality by including only one additional elementary (in the sense that it does not include angles that are irrational multiples of /spl pi/) single-qubit gate, and hence, is potentially the simplest universal basis that one can construct. We also provide an alternative proof of universality for the only other known class of universal and fault-tolerant basis proposed by P.W. Shor (1996) and A.Y. Kitaev (1997).
The quantum logic gates used in the design of a quantum computer should be both universal, meaning arbitrary quantum computations can be performed, and fault-tolerant, meaning the gates keep errors from cascading out of control. A number of no-go theorems constrain the ways in which a set of fault-tolerant logic gates can be universal. These theorems are very restrictive, and conventional wisdom holds that a universal fault-tolerant logic gate set cannot be implemented natively, requiring us to use costly distillation procedures for quantum computation. Here, we present a general framework for universal fault-tolerant logic with stabilizer codes, together with a no-go theorem that reveals the very broad conditions constraining such gate sets. Our theorem applies to a wide range of stabilizer code families, including concatenated codes and conventional topological stabilizer codes such as the surface code. The broad applicability of our no-go theorem provides a new perspective on how the constraints on universal fault-tolerant gate sets can be overcome. In particular, we show how nonunitary implementations of logic gates provide a general approach to circumvent the no-go theorem, and we present a rich landscape of constructions for logic gate sets that are both universal and fault-tolerant. That is, rather than restricting what is possible, our no-go theorem provides a signpost to guide us to new, efficient architectures for fault-tolerant quantum computing.
We present a method for constructing optimal fault-tolerant approximations of arbitrary unitary gates using an arbtrary discrete universal gate set. The method presented is numerical and scales exponentially with the number of gates used in the approximation, however, for the specific case of arbitrary single-qubit gates and the fault-tolerant gates permitted by the 7-qubit Steane code, it is shown that the longest practical gates sequences can be found. We also analyse the practicality of the fault-tolerant approximations of the phase rotation gates used in Shor’s algorithm and find that simple non-fault-tolerant phase rotations are more robust for realistic error rates. A general scaling law of how rapidly these fault-tolerant approximations converge to arbitrary single-qubit gates is also determined. In large-scale quantum computation, every qubit of data is encoded across multiple physical qubits to form a logical qubit permitting quantum error correction
This thesis is concerned with certain theoretical problems that arise naturally in the context of fault-tolerant quantum computation. Fault-tolerance can be defined as the art of building reliable devices from unreliable components, and is of particular importance for quantum computers that aim to precisely control the dynamics of extremely sensitive quantum systems. A model of quantum computation is a specification of the basic building blocks by which a quantum computation is implemented. The best known model is the quantum circuit model, where computations are implemented by means of unitary quantum gates that are applied to two-level quantum systems known as qubits. In a physical implementation of a quantum circuit, the gates and qubits will inevitably be affected by noise. Fault-tolerant quantum circuits are designed to be resilient against the effects of this noise, provided that it is not too strong. Fault-tolerance in the quantum circuit model is well developed thanks to the theory of quantum error-correcting codes. These codes allow for the correction of small numbers of errors introduced by a variety of noise processes. In a fault-tolerant quantum circuit, qubits are replaced with encoded qubits, and quantum gates with encoded gates that are immediately followed by special quantum circuits for error correction. Provided the rate at which errors occur is below a constant threshold value, the accumulation of errors can be checked so that the correct output of the computation correctly determined. The threshold acts as both a measure of how good the design of a quantum circuit is, and also as a target for experimenters aiming to implement quantum circuits. Much current research in quantum computation is aimed at designing quantum circuits that increase the noise threshold, hopefully to the point where it becomes within the reach of experimenters. A fault-tolerant encoded quantum gate must limit the propagation of errors so that the code’s corrective capabilities are not overwhelmed. It is not so easy to design encoded gates that satisfy this property, and to date only a finite handful of such gates are known. In a faulttolerant quantum circuit, all quantum gates must be decomposed or compiled in terms of those that may be implemented fault-tolerantly. In the first part of this thesis, we present two results that may be applied to this problem of gate compilation. The first is a generic method based on the Solovay-Kitaev theorem that may be applied to all quantum gates, but is most effective for those that act on single qubits. We present the Solovay-Kitaev theorem in its simples known form as an algorithm, together with novel constructions that can be used to implement it. Following this we give a two specialized methods for two-qubit gate decomposition, based on the Cartan decomposition of the Lie group SU(4). The cluster-state model of computation is an alternative to the quantum circuit model, and makes use of quantum measurements and highly entangled cluster-states to implement a quantum computation. The fault-tolerant techniques developed for quantum circuits are not immediately applicable in this model, so in order for it to be a realistic candidate for performing computations we prove that such techniques are possible. In the second part of the thesis we prove that constant fault-tolerance thresholds may be achieved in the cluster-state model, and in particular in an adaption to an optical implementation. Following this we design a complete error correction scheme for optical cluster-state computation, and numerically determine the threshold of this model in the face of the dominant noise models likely to affect such an implementation.