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Stabilizer states form a ubiquitous family of quantum states that can be graphically represented through the graph state formalism. A fundamental property of graph states is that applying a local complementation - a well-known and extensively studied graph transformation - results in a graph that represents the same entanglement as the original. In other words, the corresponding graph states are LU-equivalent. This property served as the cornerstone for capturing non-trivial quantum properties in a simple graphical manner, in the study of quantum entanglement but also for developing protocols and models based on graph states and stabilizer states, such as measurement-based quantum computing, secret sharing, error correction, entanglement distribution... However, local complementation fails short to fully characterise entanglement: there exist pairs of graph states that are LU-equivalent but cannot be transformed one into the other using local complementations. Only few is known about the equivalence of graph states beyond local complementation. We introduce a generalization of local complementation which graphically characterises the LU-equivalence of graph states. We use this characterisation to show the existence of a strict infinite hierarchy of equivalences of graph states. Our approach is based on minimal local sets, which are subsets of vertices that are known to cover any graph, and to be invariant under local complementation and even LU-equivalence. We use these structures to provide a type to each vertex of a graph, leading to a natural standard form in which the LU-equivalence can be exhibited and captured by means of generalised local complementation.

We present an efficient algorithm to reduce the number of non-Clifford gates in quantum circuits and the number of parametrized rotations in parametrized quantum circuits. The method consists in finding rotations that can be merged into a single rotation gate. This approach has already been considered before and is used as a pre-processing procedure in many optimization algorithms, notably for optimizing the number of Hadamard gates or the number of $T$ gates in Clifford$+T$ circuits. Our algorithm has a better complexity than similar methods and is particularly efficient for circuits with a low number of internal Hadamard gates. Furthermore, we show that this approach is optimal for parametrized circuits composed of Clifford gates and parametrized rotations with non-repeated parameters. For the same type of parametrized quantum circuits, we also prove that a previous procedure optimizing the number of Hadamard gates and internal Hadamard gates is optimal. This procedure is notably used in our low-complexity algorithm for optimally reducing the number of parametrized rotations.

Local sets, a graph structure invariant under local complementation, have been originally introduced in the context of quantum computing for the study of quantum entanglement within the so-called graph state formalism. A local set in a graph is made of a non-empty set of vertices together with its odd neighborhood. We show that any graph can be covered by minimal local sets, i.e. that every vertex is contained in at least one local set that is minimal by inclusion. More precisely, we introduce an algorithm for finding a minimal local set cover in polynomial time. This result is proved by exploring the link between local sets and cut-rank. We prove some additional results on minimal local sets: we give tight bounds on their size, and we show that there can be exponentially many of them in a graph. Finally, we provide an extension of our definitions and our main result to $q$-multigraphs, the graphical counterpart of quantum qudit graph states.

We study the notion of $k$-stabilizer universal quantum state, that is, an $n$-qubit quantum state, such that it is possible to induce any stabilizer state on any $k$ qubits, by using only local operations and classical communications. These states generalize the notion of $k$-pairable states introduced by Bravyi et al., and can be studied from a combinatorial perspective using graph states and $k$-vertex-minor universal graphs. First, we demonstrate the existence of $k$-stabilizer universal graph states that are optimal in size with $n=\Theta(k^2)$ qubits. We also provide parameters for which a random graph state on $\Theta(k^2)$ qubits is $k$-stabilizer universal with high probability. Our second contribution consists of two explicit constructions of $k$-stabilizer universal graph states on $n = O(k^4)$ qubits. Both rely upon the incidence graph of the projective plane over a finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. This provides a major improvement over the previously known explicit construction of $k$-pairable graph states with $n = O(2^{3k})$, bringing forth a new and potentially powerful family of multipartite quantum resources.

In this paper, we study quantitative properties of quantum programs. Properties of interest include (positive) almost-sure termination, expected runtime or expected cost, that is, for example, the expected number of applications of a given quantum gate, etc. After studying the completeness of these problems in the arithmetical hierarchy over the Clifford+T fragment of quantum mechanics, we express these problems using a variation of a quantum pre-expectation transformer, a weakest precondition based technique that allows to symbolically compute these quantitative properties. Under a smooth restriction-a restriction to polynomials of bounded degree over a real closed field-we show that the quantitative problem, which consists in finding an upper-bound to the pre-expectation, can be decided in time double-exponential in the size of a program, thus providing, despite its great complexity, one of the first decidable results on the analysis and verification of quantum programs. Finally, we sketch how the latter can be transformed into an efficient synthesis method.

We introduce the first minimal and complete equational theory for quantum circuits. Hence, we show that any true equation on quantum circuits can be derived from simple rules, all of them being standard except a novel but intuitive one which states that a multi-control $2\pi$ rotation is nothing but the identity. Our work improves on the recent complete equational theories for quantum circuits, by getting rid of several rules including a fairly impractical one. One of our main contributions is to prove the minimality of the equational theory, i.e. none of the rules can be derived from the other ones. More generally, we demonstrate that any complete equational theory on quantum circuits (when all gates are unitary) requires rules acting on an unbounded number of qubits. Finally, we also simplify the complete equational theories for quantum circuits with ancillary qubits and/or qubit discarding.

A $k$-pairable $n$-qubit state is a resource state that allows Local Operations and Classical Communication (LOCC) protocols to generate EPR-pairs among any $k$-disjoint pairs of the $n$ qubits. Bravyi et al. introduced a family of $k$-pairable $n$-qubit states, where $n$ grows exponentially with $k$. Our primary contribution is to establish the existence of 'small' pairable quantum states. Specifically, we present a family of $k$-pairable $n$-qubit graph states, where $n$ is polynomial in $k$, namely $n=O(k^3\ln^3k)$. Our construction relies on probabilistic methods. Furthermore, we provide an upper bound on the pairability of any arbitrary quantum state based on the support of any local unitary transformation that has the shared state as a fixed point. This lower bound implies that the pairability of a graph state is at most half of the minimum degree up to local complementation of the underlying graph, i.e., $k(|G \rangle)\le \lceil \delta_{loc}(G)/2\rceil$. We also investigate the related combinatorial problem of $k$-vertex-minor-universality: a graph $G$ is $k$-vertex-minor-universal if any graph on any $k$ of its vertices is a vertex-minor of $G$. When a graph is $2k$-vertex-minor-universal, the corresponding graph state is $k$-pairable. More precisely, one can create not only EPR-pairs but also any stabilizer state on any $2k$ qubits through local operations and classical communication. We establish the existence of $k$-vertex-minor-universal graphs of order $O(k^4 \ln k)$. Finally, we explore a natural extension of pairability in the presence of errors or malicious parties and show that vertex-minor-universality ensures a robust form of pairability.

Although quantum circuits have been ubiquitous for decades in quantum computing, the first complete equational theory for quantum circuits has only recently been introduced. Completeness guarantees that any true equation on quantum circuits can be derived from the equational theory. We improve this completeness result in two ways: (i) We simplify the equational theory by proving that several rules can be derived from the remaining ones. In particular, two out of the three most intricate rules are removed, the third one being slightly simplified. (ii) The complete equational theory can be extended to quantum circuits with ancillae or qubit discarding, to represent respectively quantum computations using an additional workspace, and hybrid quantum computations. We show that the remaining intricate rule can be greatly simplified in these more expressive settings, leading to equational theories where all equations act on a bounded number of qubits. The development of simple and complete equational theories for expressive quantum circuit models opens new avenues for reasoning about quantum circuits. It provides strong formal foundations for various compiling tasks such as circuit optimisation, hardware constraint satisfaction and verification.

The Clifford$+T$ gate set is commonly used to perform universal quantum computation. In such setup the $T$ gate is typically much more expensive to implement in a fault-tolerant way than Clifford gates. To improve the feasibility of fault-tolerant quantum computing it is then crucial to minimize the number of $T$ gates. Many algorithms, yielding effective results, have been designed to address this problem. It has been demonstrated that performing a pre-processing step consisting of reducing the number of Hadamard gates in the circuit can help to exploit the full potential of these algorithms and thereby lead to a substantial $T$-count reduction. Moreover, minimizing the number of Hadamard gates also restrains the number of additional qubits and operations resulting from the gadgetization of Hadamard gates, a procedure used by some compilers to further reduce the number of $T$ gates. In this work we tackle the Hadamard gate reduction problem, and propose an algorithm for synthesizing a sequence of $\pi/4$ Pauli rotations with a minimal number of Hadamard gates. Based on this result, we present an algorithm which optimally minimizes the number of Hadamard gates lying between the first and the last $T$ gate of the circuit.

We introduce a new characterisation of determinism in measurement-based quantum computing. The one-way model of computation consists in performing local measurements over a large entangled state represented by a graph. The ability to perform an overall deterministic computation requires a correction strategy because of the non-determinism of each measurement. The existence of such correction strategy depends on the underlying graph and the basis of the performed measurements. GFlow is a well-known graphical characterisation of robust determinism in MBQC when every measurement is performed in some specific planes of the Bloch sphere. While Pauli measurements are ubiquitous in MBQC, GFlow fails to be necessary for determinism when a measurement-based quantum computation involves Pauli measurements. As a consequence, Pauli Flow was designed more than 15 years ago as a generalisation of GFlow to handle MBQC with Pauli measurements: Pauli flow guarantees robust determinism, however it has been shown more recently that it fails to be a necessary condition. We introduce a further extension called Extended Pauli Flow that we prove necessary and sufficient for robust determinism.

We introduce the first complete equational theory for quantum circuits. More precisely, we introduce a set of circuit equations that we prove to be sound and complete: two circuits represent the same unitary map if and only if they can be transformed one into the other using the equations. The proof is based on the properties of multi-controlled gates -- that are defined using elementary gates -- together with an encoding of quantum circuits into linear optical circuits, which have been proved to have a complete axiomatisation., Comment: 92 pages

We introduce the LOv-calculus, a graphical language for reasoning about linear optical quantum circuits with so-called vacuum state auxiliary inputs. We present the axiomatics of the language and prove its soundness and completeness: two LOv-circuits represent the same quantum process if and only if one can be transformed into the other with the rules of the LOv-calculus. We give a confluent and terminating rewrite system to rewrite any polarisation-preserving LOv-circuit into a unique triangular normal form, inspired by the universal decomposition of Reck et al. (1994) for linear optical quantum circuits.

The ZX-calculus is a powerful framework for reasoning in quantum computing. It provides in particular a compact representation of matrices of interests. A peculiar property of the ZX-calculus is the absence of a formal sum allowing the linear combinations of arbitrary ZX-diagrams. The universality of the formalism guarantees however that for any two ZX-diagrams, the sum of their interpretations can be represented by a ZX-diagram. We introduce a general, inductive definition of the addition of ZX-diagrams, relying on the construction of controlled diagrams. Based on this addition technique, we provide an inductive differentiation of ZX-diagrams. Indeed, given a ZX-diagram with variables in the description of its angles, one can differentiate the diagram according to one of these variables. Differentiation is ubiquitous in quantum mechanics and quantum computing (e.g. for solving optimization problems). Technically, differentiation of ZX-diagrams is strongly related to summation as witnessed by the product rules. We also introduce an alternative, non inductive, differentiation technique rather based on the isolation of the variables. Finally, we apply our results to deduce a diagram for an Ising Hamiltonian.

Coherent control of quantum computations can be used to improve some quantum protocols and algorithms. For instance, the complexity of implementing the permutation of some given unitary transformations can be strictly decreased by allowing coherent control, rather than using the standard quantum circuit model. In this paper, we address the problem of optimising the resources of coherently controlled quantum computations. We refine the PBS-calculus, a graphical language for coherent control which is inspired by quantum optics. In order to obtain a more resource-sensitive language, it manipulates abstract gates -- that can be interpreted as queries to an oracle -- and more importantly, it avoids the representation of useless wires by allowing unsaturated polarising beam splitters. Technically the language forms a coloured prop. The language is equipped with an equational theory that we show to be sound, complete, and minimal. Regarding resource optimisation, we introduce an efficient procedure to minimise the number of oracle queries of a given diagram. We also consider the problem of minimising both the number of oracle queries and the number of polarising beam splitters. We show that this optimisation problem is NP-hard in general, but introduce an efficient heuristic that produces optimal diagrams when at most one query to each oracle is required., Comment: 44 pages

We introduce a new kind of expectation transformer for a mixed classical-quantum programming language. Our semantic approach relies on a new notion of a cost structure, which we introduce and which can be seen as a specialisation of the Kegelspitzen of Keimel and Plotkin. We show that our weakest precondition analysis is both sound and adequate with respect to the operational semantics of the language. Using the induced expectation transformer, we provide formal analysis methods for the expected cost analysis and expected value analysis of classical-quantum programs. We illustrate the usefulness of our techniques by computing the expected cost of several well-known quantum algorithms and protocols, such as coin tossing, repeat until success, entangled state preparation, and quantum walks.

In measurement-based quantum computing (MBQC), computation is carried out by a sequence of measurements and corrections on an entangled state. Flow, and related concepts, are powerful techniques for characterising the dependence of the corrections on previous measurement outcomes. We introduce flow-based methods for MBQC with qudit graph states, which we call Zd-flow, when the local dimension is an odd prime. Our main results are proofs that Zd-flow is a necessary and sufficient condition for a strong form of outcome determinism. Along the way, we find a suitable generalisation of the concept of measurement planes to this setting and characterise the allowed measurements in a qudit MBQC. We also provide a polynomial-time algorithm for finding an optimal Zd-flow whenever one exists., Comment: 16 pages + 10 pages of appendices, 1 figure

We present a complete optimization procedure for hybrid quantum-classical circuits with classical parity logic. While common optimization techniques for quantum algorithms focus on rewriting solely the pure quantum segments, there is interest in applying a global optimization process for applications such as quantum error correction and quantum assertions. This work, based on the pure-quantum circuit optimization procedure by Duncan et al., uses an extension of the formal graphical ZX-calculus called ZX-ground as an intermediary representation of the hybrid circuits to allow for granular optimizations below the quantum-gate level. We define a translation from hybrid circuits into diagrams that admit the graph-theoretical focused-gFlow property, needed for the final extraction back into a circuit. We then derive a number of gFlow-preserving optimization rules for ZX-ground diagrams that reduce the size of the graph, and devise an strategy to find optimization opportunities by rewriting the diagram guided by a Gauss elimination process. Then, after extracting the circuit, we present a general procedure for detecting segments of circuit-like ZX-ground diagrams which can be implemented with classical gates in the extracted circuit. We have implemented our optimization procedure as an extension to the open-source python library PyZX., Comment: 28 pages, to be published in the APLAS 2021 conference proceedings

The ZX-calculus was introduced as a graphical language able to represent specific quantum primitives in an intuitive way. The recent completeness results have shown the theoretical possibility of a purely graphical description of quantum processes. However, in practice, such approaches are limited by the intrinsic low level nature of ZX calculus. The scalable notations have been proposed as an attempt to recover an higher level point of view while maintaining the topological rewriting rules of a graphical language. We demonstrate that the scalable ZX-calculus provides a formal, intuitive, and compact framework to describe and prove quantum algorithms. As a proof of concept, we consider the standard oracle-based quantum algorithms: Deutsch-Jozsa, Bernstein-Vazirani, Simon, and Grover algorithms, and we show they can be described and proved graphically., Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2021, arXiv:2109.04886

We characterize the temporal profile of the high-order harmonic emission from ablation plasma plumes using cross-correlations with the infrared (IR) laser beam provided by 2-photon harmonic+IR ionization of rare gas atoms. We study both non-resonant plasmas (lead, gold and chrome) and resonant plasmas (indium and tin), i.e. plasmas presenting in the singly-charged ions a strong radiative transition coinciding with an harmonic order. The cross-correlation traces are found very similar for all harmonic orders and all plasma targets. The recovered harmonic pulse durations are very similar to the driving laser, with a tendency towards being shorter, demonstrating that the emission is a \stef{directly} laser-driven process even in the case of resonant harmonics. This provides valuable input for theories describing resonant harmonic emission and opens the perspective of a very-high-flux tabletop \textsc{xuv} source for applications.

We introduce a graphical language for coherent control of general quantum channels inspired by practical quantum optical setups involving polarising beam splitters (PBS). As standard completely positive trace preserving maps are known not to be appropriate to represent coherently controlled quantum channels, we propose to instead use purified channels, an extension of Stinespring's dilation. We characterise the observational equivalence of purified channels in various coherent-control contexts, paving the way towards a faithful representation of quantum channels under coherent control., Comment: 34 pages

Graphical languages, like quantum circuits or ZX-calculus, have been successfully designed to represent (memoryless) quantum computations acting on a finite number of qubits. Meanwhile, delayed traces have been used as a graphical way to represent finite-memory computations on streams, in a classical setting (cartesian data types). We merge those two approaches and describe a general construction that extends any graphical language, equipped with a notion of discarding, to a graphical language of finite memory computations. In order to handle cases like the ZX-calculus, which is complete for post-selected quantum mechanics, we extend the delayed trace formalism beyond the causal case, refining the notion of causality for stream transformers. We design a stream semantics based on stateful morphism sequences and, under some assumptions, show universality and completeness results. Finally, we investigate the links of our framework with previous works on cartesian data types, signal flow graphs, and quantum channels with memories.

In order to qualify quantum algorithms for industrial NP-Hard problems, comparing them to available polynomial approximate classical algorithms and not only to exact ones -- exponential by nature -- , is necessary. This is a great challenge as, in many cases, bounds on the reachable approximation ratios exist according to some highly-trusted conjectures of Complexity Theory. An interesting setup for such qualification is thus to focus on particular instances of these problems known to be "less difficult" than the worst-case ones and for which the above bounds can be outperformed: quantum algorithms should perform at least as well as the conventional approximate ones on these instances, up to very large sizes. We present a case study of such a protocol for two industrial problems drawn from the strongly developing field of smart-charging of electric vehicles. Tailored implementations of the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) have been developed for both problems, and tested numerically with classical resources either by emulation of Pasqal's Rydberg atom based quantum device or using Atos Quantum Learning Machine. In both cases, quantum algorithms exhibit the same approximation ratios than conventional approximation algorithms, or improve them. These are very encouraging results, although still for instances of limited size as allowed by studies on classical computing resources. The next step will be to confirm them on larger instances, on actual devices, and for more complex versions of the problems addressed.

The prop formalism allows representation of processes withstring diagrams and has been successfully applied in various areas such as quantum computing, electric circuits and control flow graphs. However, these graphical approaches suffer from scalability problems when it comes to writing large diagrams. A proposal to tackle this issue has been investigated for ZX-calculus using colored props. This paper extends the approach to any prop, making it a general tool for graphical languages manipulation.

We introduce the PBS-calculus to represent and reason on quantum computations involving coherent control of quantum operations. Coherent control, and in particular indefinite causal order, is known to enable multiple computational and communication advantages over classically ordered models like quantum circuits. The PBS-calculus is inspired by quantum optics, in particular the polarising beam splitter (PBS for short). We formalise the syntax and the semantics of the PBS-diagrams, and we equip the language with an equational theory, which is proved to be sound and complete: two diagrams are representing the same quantum evolution if and only if one can be transformed into the other using the rules of the PBS-calculus. Moreover, we show that the equational theory is minimal. Finally, we consider applications like the implementation of controlled permutations and the unrolling of loops., Comment: 55 pages. This is the full version of a paper published at MFCS'20

Inductive datatypes in programming languages allow users to define useful data structures such as natural numbers, lists, trees, and others. In this paper we show how inductive datatypes may be added to the quantum programming language QPL. We construct a sound categorical model for the language and by doing so we provide the first detailed semantic treatment of user-defined inductive datatypes in quantum programming. We also show our denotational interpretation is invariant with respect to big-step reduction, thereby establishing another novel result for quantum programming. Compared to classical programming, this property is considerably more difficult to prove and we demonstrate its usefulness by showing how it immediately implies computational adequacy at all types. To further cement our results, our semantics is entirely based on a physically natural model of von Neumann algebras, which are mathematical structures used by physicists to study quantum mechanics.

We introduce the Scalable ZX-calculus (SZX-calculus for short), a formal and compact graphical language for the design and verification of quantum computations. The SZX-calculus is an extension of the ZX-calculus, a powerful framework that captures graphically the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics through its complete set of rewrite rules. The ZX-calculus is, however, a low level language, with each wire representing a single qubit. This limits its ability to handle large and elaborate quantum evolutions. We extend the ZX-calculus to registers of qubits and allow compact representation of sub-diagrams via binary matrices. We show soundness and completeness of the SZX-calculus and provide two examples of applications, for graph states and error correcting codes.

We present an abstract model of quantum computation, the "Pauli Fusion" model, whose primitive operations correspond closely to generators of the ZX calculus (a formal graphical language for quantum computing). The fundamental operations of Pauli Fusion are also straightforward abstractions of basic processes in some leading proposed quantum technologies. These operations have non-deterministic heralded effects, similarly to measurement-based quantum computation. We describe sufficient conditions for Pauli Fusion procedures to be deterministically realisable, so that it performs a given transformation independently of its non-deterministic outcomes. This provides an operational model to realise ZX terms beyond the circuit model., Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2019, arXiv:2004.14750

The ZX-Calculus is a graphical language for diagrammatic reasoning in quantum mechanics and quantum information theory. It comes equipped with an equational presentation. We focus here on a very important property of the language: completeness, which roughly ensures the equational theory captures all of quantum mechanics. We first improve on the known-to-be-complete presentation for the so-called Clifford fragment of the language - a restriction that is not universal - by adding some axioms. Thanks to a system of back-and-forth translation between the ZX-Calculus and a third-party complete graphical language, we prove that the provided axiomatisation is complete for the first approximately universal fragment of the language, namely Clifford+T. We then prove that the expressive power of this presentation, though aimed at achieving completeness for the aforementioned restriction, extends beyond Clifford+T, to a class of diagrams that we call linear with Clifford+T constants. We use another version of the third-party language - and an adapted system of back-and-forth translation - to complete the language for the ZX-Calculus as a whole, that is, with no restriction. We briefly discuss the added axioms, and finally, we provide a complete axiomatisation for an altered version of the language which involves an additional generator, making the presentation simpler.

There exist several graphical languages for quantum information processing, like quantum circuits, ZX-Calculus, ZW-Calculus, etc. Each of these languages forms a dagger-symmetric monoidal category (dagger-SMC) and comes with an interpretation functor to the dagger-SMC of (finite dimension) Hilbert spaces. In the recent years, one of the main achievements of the categorical approach to quantum mechanics has been to provide several equational theories for most of these graphical languages, making them complete for various fragments of pure quantum mechanics. We address the question of the extension of these languages beyond pure quantum mechanics, in order to reason on mixed states and general quantum operations, i.e. completely positive maps. Intuitively, such an extension relies on the axiomatisation of a discard map which allows one to get rid of a quantum system, operation which is not allowed in pure quantum mechanics. We introduce a new construction, the discard construction, which transforms any dagger-symmetric monoidal category into a symmetric monoidal category equipped with a discard map. Roughly speaking this construction consists in making any isometry causal. Using this construction we provide an extension for several graphical languages that we prove to be complete for general quantum operations. However this construction fails for some fringe cases like the Clifford+T quantum mechanics, as the category does not have enough isometries.

We present a completely new approach to quantum circuit optimisation, based on the ZX-calculus. We first interpret quantum circuits as ZX-diagrams, which provide a flexible, lower-level language for describing quantum computations graphically. Then, using the rules of the ZX-calculus, we give a simplification strategy for ZX-diagrams based on the two graph transformations of local complementation and pivoting and show that the resulting reduced diagram can be transformed back into a quantum circuit. While little is known about extracting circuits from arbitrary ZX-diagrams, we show that the underlying graph of our simplified ZX-diagram always has a graph-theoretic property called generalised flow, which in turn yields a deterministic circuit extraction procedure. For Clifford circuits, this extraction procedure yields a new normal form that is both asymptotically optimal in size and gives a new, smaller upper bound on gate depth for nearest-neighbour architectures. For Clifford+T and more general circuits, our technique enables us to to `see around' gates that obstruct the Clifford structure and produce smaller circuits than naive 'cut-and-resynthesise' methods., Comment: 18 pages + appendices with examples, proofs, and pseudocode