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arXiv:quant-ph/0404089 · Physical Review Letters

Quantum Circuits for General Multiqubit Gates

Mikko Möttönen, Juha J. Vartiainen, Ville Bergholm, Martti M. Salomaa

Published Sep 20, 2004• 394 citations
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Abstract

We consider a generic elementary gate sequence which is needed to implement a general quantum gate acting on n qubits-a unitary transformation with 4(n) degrees of freedom. For synthesizing the gate sequence, a method based on the so-called cosine-sine matrix decomposition is presented. The result is optimal in the number of elementary one-qubit gates, 4(n), and scales more favorably than the previously reported decompositions requiring 4(n)-2(n+1) controlled NOT gates.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.93.130502

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arXiv:1011.2159•Nov 9, 2010•0 citations
We consider a generic elementary gate sequence which is needed to implement a general quantum gate acting on n qubits-a unitary transformation with 4(n) degrees of freedom. For synthesizing the gate sequence, a method based on the so-called cosine-sine matrix decomposition is presented. The result is optimal in the number of elementary one-qubit gates, 4(n), and scales more favorably than the previously reported decompositions requiring 4(n)-2(n+1) controlled NOT gates.
Optimal implementation of quantum gates is crucial for designing a quantum computer. We consider the matrix representation of an arbitrary multiqubit gate. By ordering the basis vectors using the Gray code, we construct the quantum circuit which is optimal in the sense of fully controlled single-qubit gates and yet is equivalent with the multiqubit gate. In the second step of the optimization, superfluous control bits are eliminated, which eventually results in a smaller total number of the elementary gates. In our scheme the number of controlled NOT gates is O(4(n)) which coincides with the theoretical lower bound.
Quantum algorithms may be described by sequences of unitary transformations called quantum gates and measurements applied to the quantum register of n quantum bits, qubits. A collection of quantum gates is called universal if it can be used to construct any n-qubit gate. In 1995, the universality of the set of one-qubit gates and controlled NOT gate was shown by Barenco et al. using QR decomposition of unitary matrices. Almost ten years later the decomposition was improved to include essentially fewer elementary gates. In addition, the cosine-sine matrix decomposition was applied to efficiently implement decompositions of general quantum gates. In this chapter, we review the different types of general gate decompositions and slightly improve the best known gate count for the controlled NOT gates to (23/48)4^n in the leading order. In physical realizations, the interaction strength between the qubits can decrease strongly as a function of their distance. Therefore, we also discuss decompositions with the restriction to nearest-neighbor interactions in a linear chain of qubits.
Quantum circuits currently constitute a dominant model for quantum computation [14]. Our work addresses the problem of constructing quantum circuits to implement an arbitrary given quantum computation, in the special case of two qubits. We pursue circuits without ancilla qubits and as small a number of elementary quantum gates [1, 9] as possible. Our lower bound for worst-case optimal two-qubit circuits calls for at least 17 gates: 15 one-qubit rotations and 2 CNOTs. To this end, we constructively prove a worstcase upper bound of 23 elementary gates, of which at most 4 (CNOTs) entail multi-qubit interactions. Our analysis shows that previously known synthesis algorithms, although more general, entail much larger quantum circuits than ours in the special case of two qubits. One such algorithm [4] has a worst case of 61 gates of which 18 may be CNOTs. Our techniques rely on the KAK decomposition from Lie theory as well as the polar and spectral (symmetric Shur) matrix decompositions from numerical analysis. They are related to the canonical decomposition of a two-qubit gate with respect to the "magic basis" of phase-shifted Bell states [11, 12]. We extend this decomposition in terms of elementary gates for quantum computation.
Quantum circuits currently constitute a dominant model for quantum computation [14]. Our work addresses the problem of constructing quantum circuits to implement an arbitrary given quantum computation, in the special case of two qubits. We pursue circuits without ancilla qubits and as small a number of elementary quantum gates [1, 9] as possible. Our lower bound for worst-case optimal two-qubit circuits calls for at least 17 gates: 15 one-qubit rotations and 2 CNOTs. To this end, we constructively prove a worstcase upper bound of 23 elementary gates, of which at most 4 (CNOTs) entail multi-qubit interactions. Our analysis shows that previously known synthesis algorithms, although more general, entail much larger quantum circuits than ours in the special case of two qubits. One such algorithm [4] has a worst case of 61 gates of which 18 may be CNOTs. Our techniques rely on the KAK decomposition from Lie theory as well as the polar and spectral (symmetric Shur) matrix decompositions from numerical analysis. They are related to the canonical decomposition of a two-qubit gate with respect to the "magic basis" of phase-shifted Bell states [11, 12]. We extend this decomposition in terms of elementary gates for quantum computation.
In order to demonstrate nontrivial quantum computations experimentally, such as the synthesis of arbitrary entangled states, it will be useful to understand how to decompose a desired quantum computation into the shortest possible sequence of one-qubit and two-qubit gates. We contribute to this effort by providing a method to construct an optimal quantum circuit for a general two-qubit gate that requires at most 3 controlled-NOT (CNOT) gates and 15 elementary one-qubit gates. Moreover, if the desired two-qubit gate corresponds to a purely real unitary transformation, we provide a construction that requries at most 2 CNOT and 12 one-qubit gates. We then prove that these constructions are optimal with respect to the family of CNOT, yyy-rotation, zzz-rotation, and phase gates.
In this paper, the problem of constructing an efficient quantum circuit for the implementation of an arbitrary quantum computation is addressed. To this end, a basic block based on the cosine-sine decomposition method is suggested which contains lll qubits. In addition, a previously proposed quantum-logic synthesis method based on quantum Shannon decomposition is recursively applied to reach unitary gates over lll qubits. Then, the basic block is used and some optimizations are applied to remove redundant gates. It is shown that the exact value of lll affects the number of one-qubit and CNOT gates in the proposed method. In comparison to the previous synthesis methods, the value of lll is examined consequently to improve either the number of CNOT gates or the total number of gates. The proposed approach is further analyzed by considering the nearest neighbor limitation. According to our evaluation, the number of CNOT gates is increased by at most a factor of 53\frac{5}{3}35​ if the nearest neighbor interaction is applied.