Quantum compiling with diffusive sets of gates

Abstract

Given a set of quantum gates and a target unitary operation, the most elementary task of quantum compiling is the identification of a sequence of the gates that approximates the target unitary to a determined precision ε. The Solovay-Kitaev theorem provides an elegant solution which is based on the construction of successively tighter “nets” around unity comprised of successively longer sequences of gates. The procedure for the construction of the nets, according to this theorem, requires accessibility to the inverse of the gates as well. In this work, we propose a method for constructing nets around unity without this requirement. The algorithmic procedure isapplicable to sets of gates which are diffusive enough, in the sense that sequences of moderate length cover the space of unitary matrices in a uniform way. We prove that the number of gates sufficient for reaching a precision ε scales as log(1/ε) log 3/ log 2 while the precompilation time is increased as compared to that of the Solovay-Kitaev algorithm by the exponential factor 3/2.