English

A simple method for sampling random Clifford operators

Quantum Physics 2021-08-18 v4

Abstract

We describe a simple algorithm for sampling nn-qubit Clifford operators uniformly at random. The algorithm outputs the Clifford operators in the form of quantum circuits with at most 5n+2n25n + 2n^2 elementary gates and a maximum depth of O(nlogn)\mathcal{O}(n\log n) on fully connected topologies. The circuit can be output in a streaming fashion as the algorithm proceeds, and different parts of the circuit can be generated in parallel. The algorithm has an O(n2)\mathcal{O}(n^2) time complexity, which matches the current state of the art. The main advantage of the proposed algorithm, however, lies in its simplicity and elementary derivation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2008.06011,
  title  = {A simple method for sampling random Clifford operators},
  author = {Ewout van den Berg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.06011},
  year   = {2021}
}