Put and , where . In the ordered basis , the product of the two reflections isThe leading minus sign is a physically irrelevant global phase. The remaining rotation matrix rotates the good-bad plane through , whereEquivalently, one iterate changes the initial angle to .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 324 3 b Solution 2026-09-25
The operators act on different qubits and therefore commute, soSince ,The scalar is a global phase. Thus each factor uses two Hadamard gates and one phase gate, and applying the factors in parallel or sequentially gives an exact quantum circuit of elementary gates.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 324 3 c Solution 2026-09-25
Each summand of acts on one qubit, while each summand of acts on two. Therefore is a 2-local Hamiltonian. We haveSplit into steps of length and use the second-order product formulaFor one step, in the stated estimate, so the spectral-norm error is . The error bound for a product of unitary operators makes the total errorIt is therefore enough to choosewith also large enough that the small-step estimate applies.
All terms commute. A factor uses a constant-size circuit of two controlled-NOT gates and one phase gate, up to a global phase, so one product-formula step costs gates. The complete Hamiltonian simulation consequently has size