Several physical architectures allow for measurement-based quantum computing
using sequential preparation of cluster states by means of probabilistic
quantum gates. In such an approach, the order in which partial resources are
combined to form the final cluster state turns out to be crucially important.
We determine the influence of this classical decision process on the expected
size of the final cluster. Extending earlier work, we consider different
quantum gates operating at various probabilites of success. For finite
resources, we employ a computer algebra system to obtain the provably optimal
classical control strategy and derive symbolic results for the expected final
size of the cluster. We identify two regimes: When the success probability of
the elementary gates is high, the influence of the classical control strategy
is found to be negligible. In that case, other figures of merit become more
relevant. In contrast, for small probabilities of success, the choice of an
appropriate strategy is crucial.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, contribution to special issue of New J. Phys. on
"Measurement-Based Quantum Information Processing". Replaced with published
versio