English

Quantum Field Theory Universality Criterion for Layered Programmable Decompositions

Quantum Physics 2026-03-20 v2 Optics

Abstract

The decomposition of arbitrary unitary transformations into sequences of simpler, physically realizable operations is a foundational problem in quantum information science, quantum control, and linear optics. We establish a 1D Quantum Field Theory model for justifying the universality of a broad class of such factorizations. We consider parametrizations of the form U=D1V1D2V2VM1DMU = D_1 V_1 D_2 V_2 \cdots V_{M-1}D_M, where {Dj}\{D_j\} are programmable diagonal unitary matrices and {Vj}\{V_j\} are fixed mixing matrices. By leveraging concepts like the anomalies of our effective model, we establish universality criteria given the set of mixer matrices. This approach yields a rigorous proof grounded in physics for the conditions required for the parametrization to cover the entire group of special unitary matrices. This framework provides a unified method to verify the universality of various proposed architectures and clarifies the nature of the ``generic'' mixers required for such constructions. We also provide a deterministic algorithm for verifying this genericity condition and a geometry-aware optimization method for finding the parameters of a decomposition.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.19397,
  title  = {Quantum Field Theory Universality Criterion for Layered Programmable Decompositions},
  author = {Javier Álvarez-Vizoso and David Barral},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.19397},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

10 pages, 2 figures; in v2 introduction and discussion improved, and new figures, supplementary material and code supporting the simulations added

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:59:23.649Z