We present an algorithm for performing quantum process tomography on an unknown n-qubit unitary C from the Clifford group. Our algorithm uses Bell basis measurements to deterministically learn C with 4n+3 queries, which is the asymptotically optimal query complexity. In contrast to previous algorithms that required access to C† to achieve optimal query complexity, our algorithm achieves the same performance without querying C†. Additionally, we show the algorithm is robust to perturbations and can efficiently learn the closest Clifford to an unknown non-Clifford unitary U using query overhead that is logarithmic in the number of qubits.
@article{arxiv.2505.08069,
title = {Process Tomography for Clifford Unitaries},
author = {Timothy Skaras and Paul Ginsparg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.08069},
year = {2026}
}