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Classical simulation of a topological quantum computer

B.O. Field, Tapio Simula

Published Feb 17, 2018• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

Topological quantum computers promise a fault tolerant means to perform quantum computation. Topological quantum computers use particles with exotic exchange statistics called non-Abelian anyons, and the simplest anyon model which allows for universal quantum computation by particle exchange or braiding alone is the Fibonacci anyon model. One classically hard problem that can be solved efficiently using quantum computation is finding the value of the Jones polynomial of knots at roots of unity. We aim to provide a pedagogical, self-contained, review of topological quantum computation with Fibonacci anyons, from the braiding statistics and matrices to the layout of such a computer and the compiling of braids to perform specific operations. Then we use a simulation of a topological quantum computer to explicitly demonstrate a quantum computation using Fibonacci anyons, evaluating the Jones polynomial of a selection of simple knots.

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Abstract Topological quantum computers promise a fault tolerant means to perform quantum computation. Topological quantum computers use particles with exotic exchange statistics called non-Abelian anyons, and the simplest anyon model which allows for universal quantum computation by particle exchange or braiding alone is the Fibonacci anyon model. One classically hard problem that can be solved efficiently using quantum computation is finding the value of the Jones polynomial of knots at roots of unity. We aim to provide a pedagogical, self-contained, review of topological quantum computation with Fibonacci anyons, from the braiding statistics and matrices to the layout of such a computer and the compiling of braids to perform specific operations. Then we use a simulation of a topological quantum computer to explicitly demonstrate a quantum computation using Fibonacci anyons, evaluating the Jones polynomial of a selection of simple knots. In addition to simulating a modular circuit-style quantum algorithm, we also show how the magnitude of the Jones polynomial at specific points could be obtained exactly using Fibonacci or Ising anyons. Such an exact algorithm seems ideally suited for a proof of concept demonstration of a topological quantum computer.

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Topological quantum computers promise a fault tolerant means to perform quantum computation. Topological quantum computers use particles with exotic exchange statistics called non-Abelian anyons, and the simplest anyon model which allows for universal quantum computation by particle exchange or braiding alone is the Fibonacci anyon model. One classically hard problem that can be solved efficiently using quantum computation is finding the value of the Jones polynomial of knots at roots of unity. We aim to provide a pedagogical, self-contained, review of topological quantum computation with Fibonacci anyons, from the braiding statistics and matrices to the layout of such a computer and the compiling of braids to perform specific operations. Then we use a simulation of a topological quantum computer to explicitly demonstrate a quantum computation using Fibonacci anyons, evaluating the Jones polynomial of a selection of simple knots.
Abstract Topological quantum computers promise a fault tolerant means to perform quantum computation. Topological quantum computers use particles with exotic exchange statistics called non-Abelian anyons, and the simplest anyon model which allows for universal quantum computation by particle exchange or braiding alone is the Fibonacci anyon model. One classically hard problem that can be solved efficiently using quantum computation is finding the value of the Jones polynomial of knots at roots of unity. We aim to provide a pedagogical, self-contained, review of topological quantum computation with Fibonacci anyons, from the braiding statistics and matrices to the layout of such a computer and the compiling of braids to perform specific operations. Then we use a simulation of a topological quantum computer to explicitly demonstrate a quantum computation using Fibonacci anyons, evaluating the Jones polynomial of a selection of simple knots. In addition to simulating a modular circuit-style quantum algorithm, we also show how the magnitude of the Jones polynomial at specific points could be obtained exactly using Fibonacci or Ising anyons. Such an exact algorithm seems ideally suited for a proof of concept demonstration of a topological quantum computer.
Quantum Computing with Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ Abelian anyon system
Topological quantum computers provide a fault-tolerant method for performing quantum computation. Topological quantum computers manipulate topological defects with exotic exchange statistics called anyons. The simplest anyon model for universal topological quantum computation is the Fibonacci anyon model, which is a non-abelian anyon system. In non-abelian anyon systems, exchanging anyons always results a unitary operations instead of a simple phase changing in abelian anyon systems. So, non-abelian anyon systems are of the interest to topological quantum computation. Up till now, most people still hold the belief that topological quantum computions can be implemented only on the non-abelian anyon systems. But actually this is not true. Inspired by extrinsic semiconductor technology, we suggest that abelian anyon systems with defects also support topological quantum computing. In this letter, we report a topological quantum computer prototype based on Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ abelian anyon system.
Topological quantum computation (TQC) is one of the most striking architectures that can realize fault-tolerant quantum computers. In TQC, the logical space and the quantum gates are topologically protected, i.e., robust against local disturbances. The topological protection, however, requires complicated lattice models and hard-to-manipulate dynamics; even the simplest system that can realize universal TQC—the Fibonacci anyon system—lacks a physical realization, let alone braiding the non-Abelian anyons. Here, we propose a disk model that can simulate the Fibonacci anyon system and construct the topologically protected logical spaces with the Fibonacci anyons. Via braiding the Fibonacci anyons, we can implement universal quantum gates on the logical space. Our disk model merely requires two physical qubits to realize three Fibonacci anyons at the boundary. By 15 sequential braiding operations, we construct a topologically protected Hadamard gate, which is to date the least-resource requirement for TQC. To showcase, we implement a topological Hadamard gate with two nuclear spin qubits, which reaches 97.18 % fidelity by randomized benchmarking. We further prove by experiment that the logical space and Hadamard gate are topologically protected: local disturbances due to thermal fluctuations result in a global phase only. As a platform-independent proposal, our work is a proof of principle of TQC and paves the way toward fault-tolerant quantum computation.
We have studied SU(2)k{\rm SU}(2)_kSU(2)k​ anyon models, assessing their prospects for topological quantum computation. In particular, we have compared the Ising (k=2k=2k=2) anyon and Fibonacci (k=3k=3k=3) anyon models, motivated by their potential for future realizations based on Majorana fermion quasiparticles or exotic fractional quantum-Hall states, respectively. The quantum computational performance of the different anyon models is quantified at single qubit level by the difference between a target unitary operator and its approximation realised by anyon braiding. To facilitate efficient comparisons, we have developed a Monte Carlo enhanced Solovay-Kitaev quantum compiler algorithm that finds optimal braid words in polynomial time from the exponentially large search tree. Since universal quantum computation cannot be achieved within the Ising anyon model by braiding alone, we have introduced an additional elementary phase gate to model a non-topological measurement process, which restores universality of the anyon model at the cost of breaking the full topological protection. We model conventional kinds of decoherence processes algorithmically by introducing a controllable noise term to all non-topological gate operations. We find that for reasonable levels of decoherence, even the hybrid Ising anyon model retains a significant topological advantage over a conventional, non-topological, quantum computer. Furthermore, we find that only surprisingly short anyon braids are ever required to be compiled due to the gate noise exceeding the intrinsic error of the braid words already for word lengths of the order of 100100100 elementary braids. We conclude that the future for hybrid topological quantum computation remains promising.
FINDING: Topological quantum computing uses non-Abelian anyons (Majorana zero modes) for fault-tolerant qubits, with braiding operations encoding quantum gates. | MATH: Braid group Bn B_n Bn​ generators satisfy σiσi+1σi=σi+1σiσi+1 \sigma_i \sigma_{i+1} \sigma_i = \sigma_{i+1} \sigma_i \sigma_{i+1} σi​σi+1​σi​=σi+1​σi​σi+1​; Majorana operators γi \gamma_i γi​ satisfy {γi,γj}=2δij \{\gamma_i, \gamma_j\} = 2\delta_{ij} {γi​,γj​}=2δij​; fusion rules for Ising anyons: σ×σ=1+ψ \sigma \times \sigma = 1 + \psi σ×σ=1+ψ, σ×ψ=σ \sigma \times \psi = \sigma σ×ψ=σ, ψ×ψ=1 \psi \times \psi = 1 ψ×ψ=1. | CONNECTION: Braid group is deeply linked to the golden ratio via the Temperley-Lieb algebra at q=eiπ/5 q = e^{i\pi/5} q=eiπ/5, where the Jones polynomial yields τ=(1+5)/2≈1.618 \tau = (1+\sqrt{5})/2 \approx 1.618 τ=(1+5​)/2≈1.618; Fibonacci anyons have fusion rules τ×τ=1+τ \tau \times \tau = 1 + \tau τ×τ=1+τ, directly encoding the golden ratio. | DEPTH: 9 — Non-Abelian statistics and braiding are foundational to topological quantum computation, with direct geometric harmony in Fibonacci anyon models. Author: Andrew Stewart Caldin, Independent Researcher, UK. Part of the E8 Intelligence Research series. Platform: e8intelligence.com
Abstract This paper is an introduction to relationships between quantum topology and quantum computing. We discuss unitary solutions to the YangBaxter equation that are universal quantum gates, quantum entanglement and topological entanglement, and we give an exposition of knot-theoretic recoupling theory, its relationship with topological quantum field theory and apply these methods to produce unitary representations of the braid groups that are dense in the unitary groups. Our methods are rooted in the bracket state sum model for the Jones polynomial. We give our results for a large class of representations based on values for the bracket polynomial that are roots of unity. We make a separate and self-contained study of the quantum universal Fibonacci model in this framework. We apply our results to give quantum algorithms for the computation of the colored Jones polynomials for knots and links, and the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariant of three manifolds.