Quantum computation on the edge of a symmetry-protected topological order

We elaborate the idea of quantum computation through measuring the correlation of a gapped ground state, while the bulk Hamiltonian is utilized to stabilize the resource. A simple computational primitive, by pulling out a single spin adiabatically from the bulk followed by its measurement, is shown to make any ground state of the one-dimensional isotropic Haldane phase useful ubiquitously as a quantum logical wire. The primitive is compatible with certain discrete symmetries that protect this topological order, and the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin-1 finite chain is practically available. Our approach manifests a holographic principle in that the logical information of a universal quantum computer can be written and processed perfectly on the edge state (i.e., boundary) of the system, supported by the persistent entanglement from the bulk even when the ground state and its evolution cannot be exactly analyzed.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; the final versio

Matchgates and classical simulation of quantum circuits

Let G(A,B) denote the 2-qubit gate which acts as the 1-qubit SU(2) gates A and B in the even and odd parity subspaces respectively, of two qubits. Using a Clifford algebra formalism we show that arbitrary uniform families of circuits of these gates, restricted to act only on nearest neighbour (n.n.) qubit lines, can be classically efficiently simulated. This reproduces a result originally proved by Valiant using his matchgate formalism, and subsequently related by others to free fermionic physics. We further show that if the n.n. condition is slightly relaxed, to allowing the same gates to act only on n.n. and next-n.n. qubit lines, then the resulting circuits can efficiently perform universal quantum computation. From this point of view, the gap between efficient classical and quantum computational power is bridged by a very modest use of a seemingly innocuous resource (qubit swapping). We also extend the simulation result above in various ways. In particular, by exploiting properties of Clifford operations in conjunction with the Jordan-Wigner representation of a Clifford algebra, we show how one may generalise the simulation result above to provide further classes of classically efficiently simulatable quantum circuits, which we call Gaussian quantum circuits.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure

Resource quality of a symmetry-protected topologically ordered phase for quantum computation

We investigate entanglement naturally present in the 1D topologically ordered phase protected with the on-site symmetry group of an octahedron as a potential resource for teleportation-based quantum computation. We show that, as long as certain characteristic lengths are finite, all its ground states have the capability to implement any unit-fidelity one-qubit gate operation asymptotically as a key computational building block. This feature is intrinsic to the entire phase, in that perfect gate fidelity coincides with perfect string order parameters under a state-insensitive renormalization procedure. Our approach may pave the way toward a novel program to classify quantum many-body systems based on their operational use for quantum information processing.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. v2: published versio