Creating a fault-tolerant application-scale quantum computer is the goal of many scientists. One of the steps towards the realization of this goal is the development of low-overhead error correcting codes on which a universal set of logical gates can be applied fault-tolerantly. These error correcting codes are typically stabilizer codes, and the fault-tolerant gates are typically made from constant-depth local unitary circuits.
A fundamental challenge within error correction is that constant-depth local unitary circuits on two dimensional stabilizer codes can only act on the codespace by Clifford gates. This is known as the Bravyi-Koening bound [1], and along with related no-go theorems like the Eastin-Knill theorem [2], it sets out a clear difficulty. Not only is the Clifford gate set a proper subset of all possible quantum gates, but the Gottesman-Knill theorem asserts that the result of any quantum computation using only Clifford gates can be efficiently simulated on a classical computer [3]. Hence, any approach to quantum computing based on two-dimensional local stabilizer codes will need to confront these no-go results, and as such will need to deal with the structure of the space of Clifford operations.
In this paper we discuss a generalized version of the qubit Clifford group, based on qudits with an algebra specified by a finite abelian group G with cyclic factors of mixed dimension. This is the relevant group of logical operations when considering generalized stabilizer codes over a finite group G, such as Kitaev’s quantum double model associated to G [4]. These G-Pauli groups were already known to quantum information researchers a few years before Kitaev’s model [5,6]. We recall this group and its basic properties in Sections 2 and 3. Our analysis of the G-Clifford group is based on three elementary classes of gates - Fourier transforms, automorphism gates, and quadratic phase gates. These gates were introduced in Refs. [7,8], where it was conjectured that they efficiently generate all G-Clifford group. Our main result is the proof of this conjecture. It was shown in Refs. [7,8] that any circuit consisting of elementary Clifford gates can be efficiently classically simulated, and thus our results imply that every G-Clifford circuit can be efficiently classically simulated, a generalization of the Gottesman-Knill theorem. Our technique uses a group-theoretic generalization of the qudit linear algebra performed in Ref. [9].
We additionally provide several constructions related to Fourier transforms, automorphism gates, and quadratic phase gates which we believe will be of utility to the community. We show that every G-Clifford on multiple qudits can be decomposed into one-qudit and two-qudit gates (Section 3), we decompose the CX gate using 2-qudit G-Pauli measurements and elementary one-qudit Clifford gates (Section 4), we give an algorithm to implement non-G-Clifford gates using magic state injection (Section 5), and we simplify the primitive gate set by demonstrating that the global Fourier transform on any finite abelian group G can be used to obtain Fourier transforms on split subgroups of G (Section 6).
Let G be a finite abelian group. Let
The G-Pauli group on n qudits is the space of operators on ℂ[G]n which are the tensor products of G-Pauli matrices on each component. Alternatively, one can identify this group with Pauli(Gn) via the canonical isomorphism
Let G be a finite abelian group. The following statements about Pauli(G) are all true:
Every element of Pauli(G) is unitary.
We have that Xg0 Xg1 = Xg1Xg0 = Xg0g1 and Zχ0 Zχ1 = Zχ1 Zχ0 = Zχ0χ1 for all g0, g1 ∈ G,χ0,
.{\chi _1} \in \hat G We have that ZχXg = χ(g)XgZχ for all g ∈ G,
.\chi \in \hat G If a unitary operator U : ℂ[G] → ℂ[G] commutes with all elements of Pauli(G) it must be a scalar multiple of the identity.
If a unitary operator U : ℂ[G] → ℂ[ G ] commutes with all elements of Pauli(G) up to phase it must be a Pauli operator.
Points (1)-(3) are straightforward. For point (4), suppose that
We have that
We now move on to point (5). By assumption, ZχU equals UZχ up to a phase for every
Now, we know by assumption that UXh equals XhU up to a phase. The map G → ℂ× sending a group element to the phase it induces is a homomorphism, and thus there exists a character χ such that UXh = χ(h)XhU. Hence,
Thus, U = cgXgZχ so U is a Pauli operator as desired.
Given a finite abelian group G, the G-Clifford group is
The qubit Clifford group can be generated by the Hadamard gate, S gate, and controlled-X gate as shown in Ref. [3]. We now describe the generalizations of these gates to the G-Clifford group, as introduced in Ref. [7]. We will see in Theorem 1 that these families are enough to generate all of Cliff (G).
The automorphism gates Aτ are parameterized by automorphisms τ : G → G. They act by
For example, if G = ℤ2 × ℤ2 the automorphism τ((a, b)) = (a, a + b) induces the usual qubit CX gate.
The quadratic phase gates Sξ are parameterized by quadratic forms ξ : G → ℂ ×. That is, maps ξ such that the assignment
We do not require our quadratic forms to be homogeneous, that is, it can be the case that ξ(g −1) ≠ (g). This implies that
The G-Fourier transform is the map
Naively, the G-Fourier transform is not a Clifford gate because its codomain is
The formula for the inverse Fourier transform is
Let G be a finite abelian group. For all g ∈ G,
Aτ is a Clifford gate, for all automorphism
. Namely,\tau :G\buildrel \~ \over \longrightarrow G 15 {A_\tau }{X_g}A_\tau ^\dag = {X_{\tau (g)}}, 16 {A_\tau }{Z_\chi }A_\tau ^\dag = {Z_{\chi ^\circ {\tau ^{ - 1}}}}. Sξ is a Clifford gate, for quadratic forms ξ : G → ℂ×. Namely,
17 {S_\xi }{X_g}S_\xi ^\dag = \xi (g){X_g}{Z_{{b_\xi }(g, - )}} 18 where bξ(g, h) = ξ(gh)/(ξ(g)ξ(hf)){S_\xi }{Z_\chi }S_\xi ^\dag = {Z_\chi }. ℱi is a Clifford gate, for isomorphisms
Namely,i:\hat G\buildrel \~ \over \longrightarrow G 19 {{\cal F}_i}{X_g}{\cal F}_i^\dag = {Z_{\overline {g^\circ {i^{ - 1}}} }}, 20 where{{\cal F}_i}{Z_\chi }{\cal F}_i^ + = {X_{i(\chi )}}, is identified with an element of G via the double dual isomorphism.\chi ^\circ i \in \hat \hat G
These follow from direct calculations.
In Section 7 we prove the converse:
Let G be a finite abelian group. Every Clifford gate on G can be constructed from ≤ 5 log2 |G| gates of the form Aτ, Sξ, and ℱi.
It was demonstrated in Ref. [8] for every finite group G that circuits consisting of automorphism gates, quadratic phase gates, and Fourier gates can be efficiently simulated by classical computers. This result was extended in Ref. [7], which allowed the quantum computer to perform mid-circuit G-Pauli measurements. Thus, from Theorem 1 one concludes that the results of Refs. [7,8] apply to all G-Clifford circuits.
We now discuss Cliff(Gn), which we refer to as the group of n-qudit G-Clifford gates.
Every G-Clifford operation can be decomposed into one-qudit G-Clifford gates and two-qudit automorphism gates.
In light of Theorem 1, we only need to demonstrate the result for the Aτ, Sξ, and ℱi gates. Choosing an appropriate isomorphism i, the Fourier transform on ℂ[Gn] is the tensor product of the Fourier transform on components. Thus, the global Fourier transform decomposes into one-qudit Clifford gates because the Fourier transform on each component is itself Clifford.
We now move on to the case of quadratic phase gates. Let ξ be a quadratic form on Gn. We can decompose
To implement Sξ, we implement gates which act by each of the constituent phases within equation (21). The terms ξk (gk) are one-qudit G-Clifford gates since each ξk is itself a quadratic form on G. To realize the bjk phases, for any symmetric bilinear map b : G × G → ℂ× we construct a decomposition of the two-qudit G-Clifford gate |(g1, g2)〉 ↦ b(g1, g2) |(g1, g2)〉 into one-qudit G-Cliffords and two-qudit automorphism gates.
We decompose G in terms of cyclic groups,
The last case is automorphism gates. This amounts to asking whether every automorphisms of Gn can be written as a composition of automorphisms which affect only two of the components. To demonstrate this we appeal to the matrix theory of automorphisms, described in detail in Ref. [10] and used in Section 7 to prove Theorem 1. Every automorphism can be embedded into a matrix group with modular entries. Gaussian elimination shows that every invertible matrix can be row-reduced to the identity matrix. Each step in row reduction touches at most two rows, and hence can be implemented by an automorphism which touches at most two components. Hence, every automorphism can be decomposed as an iterated composition of automorphisms which touch at most two components.
We observe that Proposition 3 does not imply that every G-Clifford operation can be turned into one-qudit gates and CX gates. In particular, there are automorphism gates which cannot be decomposed into one-qudit automorphisms and CX automorphisms. This is in contrast to the case when G = ℤd is cyclic, where every Clifford can be generated by one-qudit gates and CX only. The generalized CX gate is defined as follows:
This gate is visualized as a circuit via

The following proposition characterizes the behavior of the CX gate:
Let G be a finite abelian group. The CX gate is Clifford. Explicitly,




This follows from a direct calculation.
An example of a group where not every two-qubit G-Clifford gate can be decomposed into one qudit gates and CX gates is G = ℤ2 × ℤ4.
Let G = ℤ2 × ℤ4. Consider the subgroup H of Aut(G2) generated by automorphisms which act by the identity on G × {0} or {0} × G, along with the automorphisms (g, h) ↦ (g, g + h), (g, h) ↦ (g + h, h). The subgroup H is a proper subgroup. In particular, the map ((a0, b0), (a1, b1)) ↦ ((a0, b0), (a0 + a1, b1)) is not contained in H.
All of the automorphisms ψ ∈ H satisfy the property that the projection of ψ((a, 0), (b, 0)) onto ℤ2 × ℤ2 ⊂ G × G is congruent modulo 2 to the projection of ψ((0, a), (0, b)) onto ℤ4 × ℤ4 ⊂ G × G. The morphism ((a0, b0), (a1, b1)) ↦ ((a0, b0), (a0 + a1, b1)) does not have this property and hence it is not contained in H.
A computational primitive which finds use in topological quantum computing is the decomposition of the CX gate in terms of two-qubit Pauli measurements. We show that this algorithm generalizes to G-Cliffords for all finite groups G. In light of Proposition 5, this does not show that every multi-qudit G-Clifford can be decomposed into one-qudit gates and two-qudit G-Pauli measurements.
We recall the properties of X and Z measurements over a generic finite abelian group G. The Xg operators commute, and thus one can perform a measurement in their simultaneous eigenbasis, that is, the character basis
Similarly, the operators Zχ commute, and their simultaneous eigenspace is the group basis {|g〉, g ∈ G}. We now give a circuit for the CX gate in terms of these measurements:
The following equality holds, up to global phase:

We apply the right hand side of equation (30) to |g〉 |0〉 |h〉. After applying the Fourier transform, the state is |G|−1/2 ∑k |g〉 |k〉 |h〉. Measuring p under ZZ means we project orthogonally onto the subspace with p = gk. This results in the state |g〉 |pg−1〉 |h〉. The XX measurement with result χ yields
Measuring q under Z projects onto the subspace in which pg−1 k = q, yielding the state
In this section we discuss magic state injection over a finite group G. The G-Clifford magic state injection circuit is demonstrated in Proposition 7.
Let ξ : G → U(1) be any function. Let Sξ : ℂ[G] → ℂ[G] be the operator Sξ |g〉 = ξ(g) |g〉. The following equality holds up to phase:

We apply the circuit to the state |g〉. After applying CX†, the state is
Measuring k = g−1 h results in the state ξ(gk) |g〉 |k). Applying
Wherever ξ : G → U(1) is a function such that bξ(k,–) is a quadratic form for every k ∈ G, Proposition 7 gives an algorithm form performing the gate Sξ using only G-Cliffords and an ancillary state of the form of the form
Whenever there is an equality of finite abelian groups G = H × K, the Fourier transform on H times the identity gate on K is a Clifford gate on G = H × K. In this section we show this H-Fourier transform gate can be decomposed into elementary G-Cliffords, namely, in terms of the Fourier transform on G. This is a necessary step in our proof of Theorem 1, which allows us to decompose every G-Clifford into elementary G-Cliffords.
Let ξ : G → ℂ× be a non-degenerate quadratic form. Given
(Fiξ Sξ)3 = I up to global phase
, where A(–)−1 is the automorphism gate associated to the inversion automorphism, g ↦ g−1.F_{{i_\xi }}^2 = {A_{{{( - )}^{ - 1}}}} Let H be another finite group, and let
be any isomorphism. Letting the top qudit denote the Hilbert space ℂ[G] and letting the bottom qudit denote ℂ[H], we have thati:\hat H\buildrel \~ \over \longrightarrow H

We begin by proving part (1). Choose g ∈ G. We compute
By the defining formula of iξ(χ) we get that
Expanding further, we obtain
Applying the defining relation
Since |g〉 was chosen arbitrarily and the phase has no dependence on g, we conclude the result. Part (2) follows from direct calculation, and part (3) follows from the first two.
In this section we prove Theorem 1, which asserts that every G-Clifford gate can be efficiently decomposed into Fourier, quadratic phase, and automorphism gates. Our proof is in terms of the algebra of the symplectic group, which we recall now. Every Clifford operator U induces a map Pauli(G)/U(1) → Pauli(G)/U(1) by sending P to UPU†. Seeing as Pauli
The image of the natural map
To begin, we observe that for every pair of pairs (g0,χ0),
Thus, we can re-cast β ((g0,χ0), (g1, χ1)) as the relative phase that appears upon commuting Xg0 Zχ0 and Xg1 Zχ1. Conjugating by U ∈ Cliff(G) must preserve this relative phase. Thus, the image of U in Aut
The kernel of the map Cliff(G) → Sp(G) consists of all matrices which act trivially on Pauli(G)/U(1). That is, matrices which commute with Pauli(G) up to phase. By Proposition 2, these are exactly the Pauli matrices.
We will make use of the group of symmetric bilinear forms:
Every symmetric bilinear form b induces a map
For any finite group G, we have a short exact sequence
A modern exposition of this result is given in Theorem 2.1 of Ref. [12].
We now describe the matrix theory of automorphisms (c.f., for instance, Ref. [10]). In this theory, group elements correspond to vectors and endomorphisms correspond to matrices. Matrix-vector products and matrix-matrix products correspond to application of endomorphisms of composition of endomorphisms respectively. The fundamental theorem of finite abelian groups tells us that

We write elements of the endomorphism group End
Every homomorphism between cyclic groups is a scalar multiplication, and as such we write the entries of the matrix as integers. For example, if G = ℤ4 × ℤ2 we have the matrix equation

Our strategy for proving Theorem 1 is as follows. Representing automorphisms as matrices, we will use rowreduction operations to show that every matrix in Sp(G) can be decomposed into products of the matrices associated to Aτ, Sξ, ℱi. This shows that the subgroup generated by the Aτ, Sξ, ℱi surjects onto Sp(G). Combining with Proposition 8 we can conclude the result.
We begin with a generic automorphism of

Then, further row reductions can be performed on the factors ℤq1 …ℤqd without affecting the ℤq0-entries. This is true for Aτ and Sξ gates because applying automorphisms and phases on one collection of cyclic factors does not affect the others, and it is true for ℱi gates because we can apply partial Fourier transforms by Proposition 2. In particular, by induction we would arrive at a proof of the main result. Thus, the proof amounts to finding a series of reductions to arrive at a matrix of this form. We begin the process of finding such moves with a generic matrix, as below:

We start by applying Sξ operators. By Bézout’s lemma, there exist integers ki such that

Now, let

Now, since the matrix is an automorphism the greatest common divisor of the first column must be 1. Hence, the greatest common divisor of

Now, define the homomorphism

We now apply the symplectic condition of Sp(G) to the pair of pairs x = (g0, 0) and y = (0,χ1), where g0 = (1, 0, 0, …0), χ1 = (1, 0, 0, …0). It gives us that r = b(σ(x), σ(y)) = b(x, y) = 1. We now repeat the same procedure as before but dualized, postcomposing with the appropriate Aτ and Sξ gates. This reduces us to

Importantly, such postcomposition does not affect the entries in the first column. We now apply the symplectic condition with the pair of pairs x = (0, χ0) and y = (g1, χ1), where χ0 = (1, 0, 0, …0). Varying g1 and χ1, we conclude that the first row has all zeros after the 1st entry. Similarly, applying the symplectic condition with x = (g0, 0), g0 = (1, 0, 0, …0) we conclude that the

By induction on the number of cyclic factors in G, we conclude the decomposition into elementary gates.
We now count how many gates were used in the decomposition. At every step in the induction, we used five gates. Namely, a quadratic phase gate, followed by a Fourier transform on a split subgroup, followed by by an automorphism gate, followed by another quadratic phase gate, followed by another automorphism gate. The Fourier transform on a split subgroup is performed using the method in Proposition 2, which uses six elementary G-Clifford gates. So, the total number of gates is 10d. Since |G| ≥ 2d, we get the desired bound.