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Optimal Quantum Circuits for General Two-Qubit Gates

Farrokh Vatan·Colin Williams
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Abstract

In order to demonstrate non-trivial quantum computations experimentally, such as the synthesis of arbitrary entangled states, it will be useful to understand how to decompose a desired quantum computation into the shortest possible sequence of one-qubit and two-qubit gates. We contribute to this effort by providing a method to construct an optimal quantum circuit for a general two-qubit gate that requires at most 3 CNOT gates and 15 elementary one-qubit gates. Moreover, if the desired two-qubit gate corresponds to a purely real unitary transformation, we provide a construction that requires at most 2 CNOTs and 12 one-qubit gates. We then prove that these constructions are optimal with respect to the family of CNOT, y-rotation, z-rotation, and phase gates.

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Farrokh Vatan, Colin Williams. 2004-03-25. Optimal Quantum Circuits for General Two-Qubit Gates. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.69.032315

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