Collisional phase gate 2026-10-25
A two-qubit gate in which an interaction shifts the energy of a selected joint computational basis state and thereby accumulates a relative quantum phase. With Hamiltonian operator , where has units of energy, an interaction time gives with . The selected basis state is part of the convention: this gate differs from the usual Controlled-Z gate at . Conjugation by a Pauli X gate on the first qubit gives , because the conjugation interchanges and .
For a graph state , measuring vertex in the computational basis with result gives the normalized state
Each Controlled-Z gate from to a neighbour acts as after projecting onto ; all other edges remain unchanged. The projection contributes , so either result has probability . For a four-cycle, deleting one vertex leaves a path and adds byproducts on its two endpoints.
Controlled-Z update in the binary phase representation Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
Conjugation by a Controlled-Z gate leaves the bits unchanged and updates the displayed bits and phase, using the old bits. The phase occurs when the extra from one line is moved past on the other line. These constant-size updates support Heisenberg propagation of a Pauli observable through a Clifford circuit.
Diagonal two-qubit phase entanglement criterion Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-25
A diagonal two-qubit gate with entries is a product of local diagonal gates, up to global phase, exactly when modulo . This follows by factoring the two-by-two array of phases; its determinant vanishes precisely in that case. If the determinant is nonzero, applying the gate to produces an entangled state by the two-qubit product-state determinant criterion. In particular is local, whereas is the entangling Controlled-Z gate.
In most-significant-bit-first order, let and . On a computational-basis state, process wire with a Hadamard gate, then controlled phase gates controlled by unprocessed wire for each . Wire becomes . Reversing the final wire order yields the positive-exponent quantum Fourier transform. There are Hadamard gates and controlled phase gates. Physical reversal costs swap operators, each expressible as three controlled-NOT gates, themselves implemented with Hadamard gates and a Controlled-Z gate. Thus the entire construction uses gates from the specified family.
Let be a leaf with neighbour and let the graph on the other vertices be generated by the Controlled-Z gate product . If the leaf has Pauli Z gate frame , measuring it at angle with result applies one-bit teleportation and leaves
Any known Pauli Z gate frames on other vertices remain as additional factors before those vertices' input states. The identity combines the leaf byproduct with the measurement result.
GHZ preparation with Hadamard and controlled-Z gates Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
For , apply a Hadamard gate to one qubit, then controlled-NOTs from it to all others. Replacing each controlled-NOT gate by a target Hadamard, a Controlled-Z gate, and another target Hadamard uses allowed gates. Each one-qubit reduced state is , proving entanglement across each qubit-versus-rest bipartition.
Graph-state preparation of a computational-basis input Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
A two-vertex graph state starts with two states joined by a Controlled-Z gate. Measuring the first vertex in the basis leaves the second in , where is the measurement outcome. Thus a known zero input can be supplied to a measurement wire using only a graph-state resource and a known Pauli frame. This preparation link precedes the links implementing the desired logical J gate; later measurement angles and output-bit corrections absorb its byproduct.
Two angle-zero one-bit teleportations with outcomes implement on an arbitrary input, up to global phase. A Controlled-Z gate with a fixed quantum ancilla implements , so removes the known factor. The result is up to phase. With probability one half the desired Pauli X gate is applied; otherwise the input is unchanged. Repeating until gives an exact heralded correction with two attempts on average and almost-sure termination. It has no finite worst-case measurement count. A Pauli frame avoids this repeat-until-success procedure when only logical action or classical output statistics are required.
Liquid-state NMR quantum computing encodes qubits in distinguishable nuclear spins of molecules in solution. Selective radiofrequency pulses implement one-spin control; NMR scalar coupling supplies entangling evolution. Under , evolution for with , followed by rotations about each axis, produces a Controlled-Z gate up to global phase. Ensemble detection and common pseudo-pure preparations make small demonstrations distinct from scalable pure-state initialization.
Compile each CNOT gate into a Hadamard gate, a Controlled-Z gate, and another Hadamard gate on its target. Every one-bit teleportation implementing a Hadamard gate uses a fixed angle-zero basis. A Pauli frame propagates by classical binary updates without changing a measurement basis. All internal measurements, and any fixed computational output measurements, therefore share one simultaneous layer. Resource preparation and classical processing are not included in this logical measurement depth.
One-bit teleportation Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
Apply a Controlled-Z gate to input and a fresh quantum ancilla. Measuring the input in the equatorial qubit measurement basis at angle , with outcome , leaves the unnormalized output
Each branch has probability , independently of the input. The logical output is with known Pauli frame ; the input qubit has been measured, so this does not clone it.
Let . Since the Hadamard gate maps the standard basis to , the given gate is . Because ,
Next, use on the target wire of the Controlled-Z gate:
The control-zero block remains the identity, and the control-one block becomes , proving the identity with the stated control convention. We have therefore constructed each gate in the assumed universal quantum gate set using only .
Replacing every gate of a circuit by its displayed finite construction reproduces that circuit exactly. Thus is universal under the usual arbitrary-accuracy convention: it can perform every approximation obtainable from the given universal set. The claim concerns approximation of arbitrary unitary operators; it does not assert that finitely many circuits exactly represent an uncountable continuum of gates. This is universality transfer by exact gate synthesis.
Use Hadamard conjugation of a controlled gate to obtain the Controlled-Z gate:
Conjugating by Pauli X gates on both qubits moves its negative entry from to :
Finally , so a two-qubit diffusion circuit is
In temporal order, apply Hadamard gates on both qubits, Pauli X gates on both, a Hadamard gate on the second, a controlled-NOT gate , a Hadamard gate on the second, Pauli X gates on both, then Hadamard gates on both. Every gate is permitted. The overall minus sign is the allowed global phase, so this implements the required inversion about the mean for Grover search algorithm.
A universal quantum gate set can implement any unitary operator on any finite number of qubits, exactly when arbitrary continuous gate parameters are allowed, or to arbitrary accuracy with a suitable finite gate alphabet. More precisely, for every target and there is a finite quantum circuit with in operator norm. This ignores only an overall global phase of the complete operation. Universality lets a fixed collection of controllable elementary operations run arbitrary quantum algorithms rather than requiring a different physical interaction for each algorithm.
All single-qubit unitary gates, together with the controlled-NOT gate between selectable pairs, form an exact universal quantum gate set. One way to see sufficiency is to eliminate entries of a finite unitary matrix by two-level rotations between computational basis vectors; these rotations decompose into controlled single-qubit rotations, which in turn decompose into single-qubit gates and controlled-NOT gates. Single-qubit gates alone preserve product states and cannot supply general quantum entanglement. A finite approximate universal example is the Hadamard gate, the T gate , and the controlled-NOT gate; finite exact words over a finite alphabet cannot represent every continuously parameterized unitary operator exactly.
Distinguish the Hamiltonian operator from the Hadamard gate . For the printed collisional phase gate,
As written, has units of energy. The Schrödinger equation gives
because only has a nonzero energy eigenvalue. In the ordered computational basis , define
If an interaction strength is instead quoted as an angular frequency , the Hamiltonian operator is and . An alternative definition with would have . The minus sign above follows the usual time-evolution operator convention. At these conventions give the same .
For the quantum circuit, use on the first qubit to move the selective minus sign from to :
Conjugating the target of this Controlled-Z gate by the Hadamard gate gives the required controlled-NOT gate:
The rightmost matrix acts first. Thus the network applies , then , then , and maps to , where is exclusive or.
Figure 1.
Controlled-NOT from the printed collisional phase gate
. Time runs from left to right. Pauli X gates act on the first wire and Hadamard gates on the second, before and after the selective phase gate. The phase gate changes the sign of 01 only. Details.
The required identity is CNOT control reversal in the Hadamard basis. To derive it using standard quantum circuit identities, let be the Controlled-Z gate, which multiplies by and fixes the other computational-basis states. Since ,
The Controlled-Z gate is symmetric in its two wires. Combining this symmetry with gives
This is an exact operator identity, including its global phase, and applies to arbitrary inputs. One can also check it directly from the orthogonal projectors : conjugating by gives
For the three-wire quantum circuit, put . Conjugation distributes over products because : . Each CNOT gate in therefore reverses direction, while the Hadamard gates on untouched wires cancel. The Hadamard-conjugated linear oracle is
These are the simplified quantum circuits in the figure: for there are no gates; for there is ; for there is ; and for there are both. The ancilla qubit becomes their common control. On every computational-basis state, the entire simplified circuit acts as
Starting the data qubits at , the prescribed computational basis preparation of the ancilla qubit must therefore be : it activates the required flips and gives . Starting it at instead gives for every , so no information is obtained.
More generally, an initial ancilla qubit state in this same fixed quantum circuit gives
For nonzero , the desired data output has probability , and exact identification for every requires . This condition refers to the displayed ancilla preparation for the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm: the state entering the function oracle must be , up to global phase. Other quantum state preparation procedures that deliver this same state are equivalent; is the prescribed input before the first Hadamard gate.
For arbitrary , linearity of the linear Boolean function supplies
This decomposition is for analysis: the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm calls the unknown function oracle as one supplied operation. The common control starts at , so the simplified quantum circuit takes to . Equivalently, phase kickback gives a product state
which the final Hadamard transform decodes to . Thus one quantum oracle call suffices for every , compared with classical calls. This counts function oracle uses; the surrounding Hadamard gates and final computational-basis measurement still act on and qubits, respectively.
Encode and in two orthogonal linear polarizations. Then are linear polarizations at opposite forty-five-degree angles, while are the two circular polarizations. Their right/left names depend on the viewing convention. A half-wave plate with its axis at to H implements H up to a common phase, since its Jones matrix has entries and .
In principle, a nonlinear interaction producing supplies a deterministic Controlled-Z gate: only the joint VV component acquires a minus sign. A strongly coupled matter mediator can also provide the required conditional interaction. At optical single-photon energies the direct nonlinear interaction is weak; loss, unwanted noise and maintaining indistinguishable spatial and temporal modes make a high-fidelity deterministic gate difficult. Passive linear optics by itself does not supply this deterministic entangling interaction; measurement-based optical gates introduce additional resources and success conditions.
For the printed circuit, the first three H gates create . The two controlled-Z operations from the first qubit to the others give
The final H gates on the last two qubits therefore produce the GHZ state
Define and for . In any of the XYY, YXY and YYX bases, direct overlaps give
with the same coefficient formula when the X position is permuted. Hence the three explicit expansions can be written compactly as
In each sum the four sign triples are . They have equal probabilities . Thus two Y outcomes determine the X outcome with certainty: their product times the X outcome is .
In the XXX basis,
The four allowed triples are , so the XXX outcome product is .
The GHZ theorem follows without a statistical inequality. If local predetermined values reproduced the three mixed-basis correlations, multiplying them would give
because every Y value is squared. Quantum mechanics instead predicts the XXX product . This is an all-versus-nothing contradiction with local realism using ideal perfect correlations. Standard two-qubit Bell-state tests compare statistical correlations through a Bell inequality; the GHZ construction makes the inconsistency visible already at the level of these deterministic parity constraints.
In heteronuclear liquid-state NMR quantum computing, different gyromagnetic ratios give well-separated resonance frequencies. A resonant transverse radio-frequency pulse selects one nucleus; its phase sets the rotation axis in the transverse plane and its duration and amplitude set the rotation angle. Detuning, free precession and rotating-frame phase changes supply rotations. For homonuclear spins, differing chemical shifts can provide frequency selectivity, but selective pulses must be narrow enough not to rotate the other spin. Exactly magnetically equivalent spins cannot be independently addressed by a spatially uniform radio-frequency field merely because they are labelled as different qubits.
In the weak-coupling regime, the secular NMR scalar coupling is
with in hertz. Free coupling evolution for gives an entangling propagator . Suitable single-qubit rotations convert it to a Controlled-Z gate, and Hadamard conjugation on the target converts controlled- to a controlled-NOT gate. Refocusing pulses remove unwanted Zeeman evolution and unwanted couplings. This construction applies to resolved, weakly coupled homonuclear spins as well as heteronuclear spins; strongly coupled or equivalent spins need a different control analysis.
These controls supply a universal gate set on a finite addressable connected register, but conventional liquid-state molecular NMR is not an architecture that scales straightforwardly to arbitrary register size. A finite chemical-shift bandwidth causes spectral crowding as more spins and coupling-split transitions are added; increasingly selective pulses become slow relative to coherence times, and complicated coupling networks require extensive refocusing. The exponentially small pseudo-pure-state signal further limits the complete ensemble scheme. Formal unitary universality therefore does not establish scalable physical addressability, gate speed or initialization.
Track the factors only when the corresponding transition is addressed. They are common within the addressed two-state subspace, but become physically relevant relative phases between computational basis states. Using a semicolon to separate the shared motional number state, the complete paths are
The middle arrow comprises both Y pulses. In the last row those individual steps are . The two X pulses contribute for either initially excited control; the Y pair supplies a second minus sign only when the second ion is also excited.
The shared motion returns to its ground state for all four inputs, and the auxiliary internal state is empty. Quantum superposition therefore gives the two-qubit gate
Discarding the X-pulse factors would incorrectly identify with a Controlled-Z gate itself.
Let and let be one only at the marked input. A three-qubit implementation of Grover's algorithm starts with , applies a Hadamard gate to each qubit, queries the reversible quantum oracle , applies the Grover diffusion operator to the first two qubits, and measures those two qubits in the computational basis. Here . The full three-wire quantum circuit is the composition
Figure 1.
Three- and two-qubit implementations of Grover's algorithm for four inputs
. Details.
Here . Since , phase kickback gives . The third qubit remains separable and unchanged. A direct marked-state phase oracle therefore replaces the three-qubit query using only two qubits:
For the explicit choice only at , is a Controlled-Z gate. Immediately after it,
The mean of these four probability amplitudes is . The Grover diffusion operator maps each probability amplitude to . The three unmarked probability amplitudes become zero and the marked one becomes one. A single query consequently finds with probability one.
A gate-level implementation of is . Up to an irrelevant global phase, it is . For any other chosen marked word, conjugate the Controlled-Z gate by Pauli X gates on precisely the positions where the marked word has a zero.