Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:quant-ph/0408190 · Physical Review A

Stabilizer states and Clifford operations for systems of arbitrary dimensions and modular arithmetic

Erik Hostens, Jeroen Dehaene, Bart De Moor

Published Apr 11, 2005• 137 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We describe generalizations of the Pauli group, the Clifford group, and stabilizer states for qudits in a Hilbert space of arbitrary dimension $d$. We examine a link with modular arithmetic, which yields an efficient way of representing the Pauli group and the Clifford group with matrices over ${\mathbb{Z}}_{d}$. We further show how a Clifford operation can be efficiently decomposed into one and two-qudit operations. We also focus in detail on standard basis expansions of stabilizer states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.71.042315

Related papers

A Review of Galois Qudits

Adam Wills

Galois qudits are $q$-dimensional quantum systems whose choice of Pauli group encodes the arithmetic of some finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. They differ from the more familiar modular qudit, which are the same quantum system but whose choice of Pauli group are the clock and shift operators, which encode the arithmetic of integer addition and multiplication modulo $q$. Galois qudits are a useful mathematical construct that allow us to leverage the mathematical tools that are native to the larger qudit while only physically building smaller qudits. In particular, a Galois qudit of dimension $q = 2^s$ is exactly the same thing as a collection of $s$ qubits, not only in its Hilbert space, but also in its Pauli group, and Clifford hierarchy. This formalism has found a lot of utility recently in constructing quantum error-correcting codes over qubits with useful properties. In this review, we build on existing literature to collect and formalise facts and proofs about Galois qudits over binary extension fields. We define them and their Clifford hierarchies, describe what it means to measure their Pauli operators, describe their stabiliser tableaux, formally define qudit-to-qubit mappings, and finally describe quantum Reed-Solomon codes.

quant-pharXiv:2605.18981•May 20, 2026•0 citations

Clifford group, stabilizer states, and linear and quadratic operations over GF(2)

Jeroen Dehaene, Bart De Moor

We describe stabilizer states and Clifford group operations using linear operations and quadratic forms over binary vector spaces. We show how the n-qubit Clifford group is isomorphic to a group with an operation that is defined in terms of a $(2n+1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}(2n+1)$ binary matrix product and binary quadratic forms. As an application we give two schemes to efficiently decompose Clifford group operations into one- and two-qubit operations. We also show how the coefficients of stabilizer states and Clifford group operations in a standard basis expansion can be described by binary quadratic forms. Our results are useful for quantum error correction, entanglement distillation, and possibly quantum computing.

arXiv:quant-ph/0304125•Physical Review A•Oct 20, 2003•183 citations

Universality in composite quantum systems

Alejandro Borda Kuhlmann

Qudits are the natural generalization of qubits, that is, the basic unit of information in quantum computation. This generalization allows for quantum states to be represented with the same cyclic nature present in qubits, while also permitting the basic unit of information to be stored in d-level systems. In this document, we are concerned with studying universality over qudits on arbitrary dimension d. The question of single-qudit universality of a set of operators can be reduced to studying the adjoint representation of the set and determining whether or not its generated group is finite. Thus, we set out to find universal sets of operators in quantum computation over qudits, for any possible value of d. Moreover, we focus on finding “Clifford + T-like” universal sets of operators in arbitrary dimensions, in the hopes of maintaining a strong analog to the qubits case and its most studied universal set. We accomplish this goal by studying how the Clifford group behaves on arbitrary dimensions, and how this behavior relates to the typical Clifford group in prime dimensions. Furthermore, we find that the Clifford group on arbitrary dimension splits as the typical Clifford group on each of the coprime factors of d, which leads to a fundamental difference between the study of universality on prime power dimensions and arbitrary dimensions containing co-prime factors. Then, we focus on studying the structure of universal sets in dimension d, for any d containing at least two co-prime factors. Thus, after studying which T-like gates drive the single-qudit Clifford group to universality on prime power dimensions; that is, guaranteeing the irreducibility of the adjoint representation and an infinite generated group, we combine these two approaches to obtain “Clifford + T-like” universal sets on all possible dimensions.

•Dec 2, 2025•0 citations

Clifford orbits and stabilizer states

Lingxuan Feng, Shunlong Luo

Abstract Stabilizer states serve as ‘classical objects’ in the stabilizer formalism of quantum theory, and play an important role in quantum error correction, fault-tolerant quantum computation, and quantum communication. They provide an efficient description of many basic features of quantum theory and exhibit a rich structure. For prime dimensional systems, they may be defined by two quite different yet equivalent ways: The first is via stabilizer groups (maximal Abelian subgroups of the discrete Heisenberg–Weyl group). The second is via the orbits of the Clifford group acting on any computational basis state. However, in a general dimensional system, this equivalence breaks down, and consequently, it is desirable to clarify the difference and relation between the above two approaches to stabilizer states. In this work, we show that these two approaches are equivalent if and only if the system dimension is square-free (i.e. has no square factor). Furthermore, we completely reveal the relation between the Clifford orbits and stabilizer states in an arbitrary dimensional system, derive the explicit expressions of the Clifford orbits and determine their cardinalities.

Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical•Sep 3, 2024•6 citations

Qudit noisy stabilizer formalism

Paul Aigner, Maria Flors Mor-Ruiz, Wolfgang Dür

We introduce the qudit noisy stabilizer formalism, a framework for efficiently describing the evolution of stabilizer states in prime-power dimensions subject to generalized Pauli-diagonal noise under Clifford operations and generalized Pauli measurements. For arbitrary dimensions, the formalism remains applicable, though restricted to a subset of stabilizer states and operations. The computational complexity scales linearly with the number of qudits in the initial state and exponentially with the number of qudits in the final state. This ensures that when noisy qudit stabilizer states evolve via generalized Pauli measurements and Clifford operations to generate multipartite entangled states of a few qudits, their description remains efficient. We demonstrate this by analyzing the generation of a generalized Bell pair from a noisy linear cluster state subject to two distinct noise sources acting on each of the qudits.

arXiv:2505.03889•Physical Review A•Jul 14, 2025•1 citation

Qudit stabilizers beyond the free case and the twisted Kitaev model

Ruslan Maksimau

We study the stabiliser formalism for qudits of arbitrary dimension $d$. In the free case, we show that the basic theorem of the stabiliser formalism remains valid: if the stabiliser subgroup $H$ is free as a $Z/dZ$-module and contains no non-trivial scalars, then the protected space $V^H$ is naturally identified with the state space of a smaller number of qudits of the same dimension, and the quotient $N(H)/H$ is identified with the Pauli group on a smaller number of qudits. We then remove the freeness assumption and describe the resulting structure in general. In this case, the protected space is identified with a tensor product of qudit spaces of possibly smaller dimensions, and the quotient $N(H)/H$ is described by a corresponding product of qudit Pauli groups, possibly of smaller dimensions, over a common center. We also characterise the shifted free case, which is exactly the situation in which $N(H)/H$ is again an ordinary qudit Pauli group. Our approach is algebraic and uniform, and applies in particular to the qudit Kitaev model and to its shifted and twisted variants.

math.QACross-listedarXiv:2603.29896•Apr 1, 2026•0 citations
We describe generalizations of the Pauli group, the Clifford group, and stabilizer states for qudits in a Hilbert space of arbitrary dimension ddd. We examine a link with modular arithmetic, which yields an efficient way of representing the Pauli group and the Clifford group with matrices over Zd{\mathbb{Z}}_{d}Zd​. We further show how a Clifford operation can be efficiently decomposed into one and two-qudit operations. We also focus in detail on standard basis expansions of stabilizer states.
Galois qudits are qqq-dimensional quantum systems whose choice of Pauli group encodes the arithmetic of some finite field Fq\mathbb{F}_qFq​. They differ from the more familiar modular qudit, which are the same quantum system but whose choice of Pauli group are the clock and shift operators, which encode the arithmetic of integer addition and multiplication modulo qqq. Galois qudits are a useful mathematical construct that allow us to leverage the mathematical tools that are native to the larger qudit while only physically building smaller qudits. In particular, a Galois qudit of dimension q=2sq = 2^sq=2s is exactly the same thing as a collection of sss qubits, not only in its Hilbert space, but also in its Pauli group, and Clifford hierarchy. This formalism has found a lot of utility recently in constructing quantum error-correcting codes over qubits with useful properties. In this review, we build on existing literature to collect and formalise facts and proofs about Galois qudits over binary extension fields. We define them and their Clifford hierarchies, describe what it means to measure their Pauli operators, describe their stabiliser tableaux, formally define qudit-to-qubit mappings, and finally describe quantum Reed-Solomon codes.
We describe stabilizer states and Clifford group operations using linear operations and quadratic forms over binary vector spaces. We show how the n-qubit Clifford group is isomorphic to a group with an operation that is defined in terms of a $(2n+1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}(2n+1)$ binary matrix product and binary quadratic forms. As an application we give two schemes to efficiently decompose Clifford group operations into one- and two-qubit operations. We also show how the coefficients of stabilizer states and Clifford group operations in a standard basis expansion can be described by binary quadratic forms. Our results are useful for quantum error correction, entanglement distillation, and possibly quantum computing.
Qudits are the natural generalization of qubits, that is, the basic unit of information in quantum computation. This generalization allows for quantum states to be represented with the same cyclic nature present in qubits, while also permitting the basic unit of information to be stored in d-level systems. In this document, we are concerned with studying universality over qudits on arbitrary dimension d. The question of single-qudit universality of a set of operators can be reduced to studying the adjoint representation of the set and determining whether or not its generated group is finite. Thus, we set out to find universal sets of operators in quantum computation over qudits, for any possible value of d. Moreover, we focus on finding “Clifford + T-like” universal sets of operators in arbitrary dimensions, in the hopes of maintaining a strong analog to the qubits case and its most studied universal set. We accomplish this goal by studying how the Clifford group behaves on arbitrary dimensions, and how this behavior relates to the typical Clifford group in prime dimensions. Furthermore, we find that the Clifford group on arbitrary dimension splits as the typical Clifford group on each of the coprime factors of d, which leads to a fundamental difference between the study of universality on prime power dimensions and arbitrary dimensions containing co-prime factors. Then, we focus on studying the structure of universal sets in dimension d, for any d containing at least two co-prime factors. Thus, after studying which T-like gates drive the single-qudit Clifford group to universality on prime power dimensions; that is, guaranteeing the irreducibility of the adjoint representation and an infinite generated group, we combine these two approaches to obtain “Clifford + T-like” universal sets on all possible dimensions.
Abstract Stabilizer states serve as ‘classical objects’ in the stabilizer formalism of quantum theory, and play an important role in quantum error correction, fault-tolerant quantum computation, and quantum communication. They provide an efficient description of many basic features of quantum theory and exhibit a rich structure. For prime dimensional systems, they may be defined by two quite different yet equivalent ways: The first is via stabilizer groups (maximal Abelian subgroups of the discrete Heisenberg–Weyl group). The second is via the orbits of the Clifford group acting on any computational basis state. However, in a general dimensional system, this equivalence breaks down, and consequently, it is desirable to clarify the difference and relation between the above two approaches to stabilizer states. In this work, we show that these two approaches are equivalent if and only if the system dimension is square-free (i.e. has no square factor). Furthermore, we completely reveal the relation between the Clifford orbits and stabilizer states in an arbitrary dimensional system, derive the explicit expressions of the Clifford orbits and determine their cardinalities.
We introduce the qudit noisy stabilizer formalism, a framework for efficiently describing the evolution of stabilizer states in prime-power dimensions subject to generalized Pauli-diagonal noise under Clifford operations and generalized Pauli measurements. For arbitrary dimensions, the formalism remains applicable, though restricted to a subset of stabilizer states and operations. The computational complexity scales linearly with the number of qudits in the initial state and exponentially with the number of qudits in the final state. This ensures that when noisy qudit stabilizer states evolve via generalized Pauli measurements and Clifford operations to generate multipartite entangled states of a few qudits, their description remains efficient. We demonstrate this by analyzing the generation of a generalized Bell pair from a noisy linear cluster state subject to two distinct noise sources acting on each of the qudits.
We study the stabiliser formalism for qudits of arbitrary dimension ddd. In the free case, we show that the basic theorem of the stabiliser formalism remains valid: if the stabiliser subgroup HHH is free as a Z/dZZ/dZZ/dZ-module and contains no non-trivial scalars, then the protected space VHV^HVH is naturally identified with the state space of a smaller number of qudits of the same dimension, and the quotient N(H)/HN(H)/HN(H)/H is identified with the Pauli group on a smaller number of qudits. We then remove the freeness assumption and describe the resulting structure in general. In this case, the protected space is identified with a tensor product of qudit spaces of possibly smaller dimensions, and the quotient N(H)/HN(H)/HN(H)/H is described by a corresponding product of qudit Pauli groups, possibly of smaller dimensions, over a common center. We also characterise the shifted free case, which is exactly the situation in which N(H)/HN(H)/HN(H)/H is again an ordinary qudit Pauli group. Our approach is algebraic and uniform, and applies in particular to the qudit Kitaev model and to its shifted and twisted variants.