Graphical description of the action of local clifford operations on graph states

M. Van den Nest

Maarten Van den Nest, Jeroen Dehaene, Bart De Moor

We translate the action of local Clifford operations on graph states into transformations on their associated graphs, i.e., we provide transformation rules, stated in purely graph theoretical terms, which completely characterize the evolution of graph states under local Clifford operations. As we will show, there is essentially one basic rule, successive application of which generates the orbit of any graph state under local unitary operations within the Clifford group.

Thomas Thiemann

Nikoloz Tsimakuridze, Otfried Gühne

Abstract Graph states are quantum states that can be described by a stabilizer formalism and play an important role in quantum information processing. We consider the action of local unitary operations on graph states and hypergraph states. We focus on non-Clifford operations and find for certain transformations a graphical description in terms of weighted hypergraphs. This leads to the indentification of hypergraph states that are locally equivalent to graph states. Moreover, we present a systematic way to construct pairs of graph states which are equivalent under local unitary operations, but not equivalent under local Clifford operations. This generates counterexamples to a conjecture known as LU-LC conjecture. So far, the only counterexamples to this conjecture were found by random search. Our method reproduces the smallest known counterexample as a special case and provides a physical interpretation.

Matthew Elliott, Bryan Eastin, Carlton M. Caves

We introduce a graphical representation of stabilizer states and translate the action of Clifford operators on stabilizer states into graph operations on the corresponding stabilizer-state graphs. Our stabilizer graphs are constructed of solid and hollow nodes, with (undirected) edges between nodes and with loops and signs attached to individual nodes. We find that local Clifford transformations are completely described in terms of local complementation on nodes and along edges, loop complementation, and change of node type or sign. Additionally, we show that a small set of equivalence rules generates all graphs corresponding to a given stabilizer state; we do this by constructing an efficient procedure for testing the equality of any two stabilizer graphs.

Kengatharam Thirulogasanthar, A. L. Hohouéto