arXiv subjects

Alexandre Clément

Publications and source records attributed to Alexandre Clément.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Complete Equational Theory for Real-Clifford+CH Quantum Circuits

We introduce a complete equational theory for the fragment of quantum circuits generated by the real Clifford gates plus the two-qubit controlled-Hadamard gate. That is, we give a simple set of equalities between circuits of this fragment, and prove that any other true equation can be derived from these. This is the first such completeness result for a finitely-generated, universal fragment of quantum circuits, with no parameterized gates and no need for ancillas.

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arXiv2024

Minimal Equational Theories for Quantum Circuits

We introduce the first minimal and complete equational theory for quantum circuits. Hence, we show that any true equation on quantum circuits can be derived from simple rules, all of them being standard except a novel but intuitive one which states that a multi-control $2π$ rotation is nothing but the identity. Our work improves on the recent complete equational theories for quantum circuits, by getting rid of several rules including a fairly impractical one. One of our main contributions is to prove the minimality of the equational theory, i.e. none of the rules can be derived from the other ones. More generally, we demonstrate that any complete equational theory on quantum circuits (when all gates are unitary) requires rules acting on an unbounded number of qubits. Finally, we also simplify the complete equational theories for quantum circuits with ancillary qubits and/or qubit discarding.

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arXiv2024

Resource Optimisation of Coherently Controlled Quantum Computations with the PBS-calculus

Coherent control of quantum computations can be used to improve some quantum protocols and algorithms. For instance, the complexity of implementing the permutation of some given unitary transformations can be strictly decreased by allowing coherent control, rather than using the standard quantum circuit model. In this paper, we address the problem of optimising the resources of coherently controlled quantum computations. We refine the PBS-calculus, a graphical language for coherent control which is inspired by quantum optics. In order to obtain a more resource-sensitive language, it manipulates abstract gates -- that can be interpreted as queries to an oracle -- and more importantly, it avoids the representation of useless wires by allowing unsaturated polarising beam splitters. Technically the language forms a coloured prop. The language is equipped with an equational theory that we show to be sound, complete, and minimal. Regarding resource optimisation, we introduce an efficient procedure to minimise the number of oracle queries of a given diagram. We also consider the problem of minimising both the number of oracle queries and the number of polarising beam splitters. We show that this optimisation problem is NP-hard in general, but introduce an efficient heuristic that produces optimal diagrams when at most one query to each oracle is required.

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arXiv2023

Quantum Circuit Completeness: Extensions and Simplifications

Although quantum circuits have been ubiquitous for decades in quantum computing, the first complete equational theory for quantum circuits has only recently been introduced. Completeness guarantees that any true equation on quantum circuits can be derived from the equational theory. We improve this completeness result in two ways: (i) We simplify the equational theory by proving that several rules can be derived from the remaining ones. In particular, two out of the three most intricate rules are removed, the third one being slightly simplified. (ii) The complete equational theory can be extended to quantum circuits with ancillae or qubit discarding, to represent respectively quantum computations using an additional workspace, and hybrid quantum computations. We show that the remaining intricate rule can be greatly simplified in these more expressive settings, leading to equational theories where all equations act on a bounded number of qubits. The development of simple and complete equational theories for expressive quantum circuit models opens new avenues for reasoning about quantum circuits. It provides strong formal foundations for various compiling tasks such as circuit optimisation, hardware constraint satisfaction and verification.

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arXiv2023

A Complete Equational Theory for Quantum Circuits

We introduce the first complete equational theory for quantum circuits. More precisely, we introduce a set of circuit equations that we prove to be sound and complete: two circuits represent the same unitary map if and only if they can be transformed one into the other using the equations. The proof is based on the properties of multi-controlled gates -- that are defined using elementary gates -- together with an encoding of quantum circuits into linear optical circuits, which have been proved to have a complete axiomatisation.

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arXiv2022

LOv-Calculus: A Graphical Language for Linear Optical Quantum Circuits

We introduce the LOv-calculus, a graphical language for reasoning about linear optical quantum circuits with so-called vacuum state auxiliary inputs. We present the axiomatics of the language and prove its soundness and completeness: two LOv-circuits represent the same quantum process if and only if one can be transformed into the other with the rules of the LOv-calculus. We give a confluent and terminating rewrite system to rewrite any polarisation-preserving LOv-circuit into a unique triangular normal form, inspired by the universal decomposition of Reck et al. (1994) for linear optical quantum circuits.

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arXiv2021

Coherent control and distinguishability of quantum channels via PBS-diagrams

We introduce a graphical language for coherent control of general quantum channels inspired by practical quantum optical setups involving polarising beam splitters (PBS). As standard completely positive trace preserving maps are known not to be appropriate to represent coherently controlled quantum channels, we propose to instead use purified channels, an extension of Stinespring's dilation. We characterise the observational equivalence of purified channels in various coherent-control contexts, paving the way towards a faithful representation of quantum channels under coherent control.

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arXiv2020

PBS-Calculus: A Graphical Language for Coherent Control of Quantum Computations

We introduce the PBS-calculus to represent and reason on quantum computations involving coherent control of quantum operations. Coherent control, and in particular indefinite causal order, is known to enable multiple computational and communication advantages over classically ordered models like quantum circuits. The PBS-calculus is inspired by quantum optics, in particular the polarising beam splitter (PBS for short). We formalise the syntax and the semantics of the PBS-diagrams, and we equip the language with an equational theory, which is proved to be sound and complete: two diagrams are representing the same quantum evolution if and only if one can be transformed into the other using the rules of the PBS-calculus. Moreover, we show that the equational theory is minimal. Finally, we consider applications like the implementation of controlled permutations and the unrolling of loops.

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