We combine numerical optimization techniques [Uskov et al., Phys. Rev. A 79, 042326 (2009)] with symmetries of the Weyl chamber to obtain optimal implementations of generic linear-optical KLM-type two-qubit entangling gates. We find that while any tw
o-qubit controlled-U gate, including CNOT and CS, can be implemented using only two ancilla resources with success probability S > 0.05, a generic SU(4) operation requires three unentangled ancilla photons, with success S > 0.0063. Specifically, we obtain a maximal success probability close to 0.0072 for the B gate. We show that single-shot implementation of a generic SU(4) gate offers more than an order of magnitude increase in the success probability and two-fold reduction in overhead ancilla resources compared to standard triple-CNOT and double-B gate decompositions.
We propose a linear-optical implementation of a hyperentanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting code. The code is hyperentanglement-assisted because the shared entanglement resource is a photonic state hyperentangled in polarization and orbital a
ngular momentum. It is possible to encode, decode, and diagnose channel errors using linear-optical techniques. The code corrects for polarization flip errors and is thus suitable only for a proof-of-principle experiment. The encoding and decoding circuits use a Knill-Laflamme-Milburn-like scheme for transforming polarization and orbital angular momentum photonic qubits. A numerical optimization algorithm finds a unit-fidelity encoding circuit that requires only three ancilla modes and has success probability equal to 0.0097.
Numerical optimization is used to design linear-optical devices that implement a desired quantum gate with perfect fidelity, while maximizing the success rate. For the 2-qubit CS (or CNOT) gate, we provide numerical evidence that the maximum success
rate is $S=2/27$ using two unentangled ancilla resources; interestingly, additional ancilla resources do not increase the success rate. For the 3-qubit Toffoli gate, we show that perfect fidelity is obtained with only three unentangled ancilla photons -- less than in any existing scheme -- with a maximum $S=0.00340$. This compares well with $S=(2/27)^2/2 approx 0.00274$, obtainable by combining two CNOT gates and a passive quantum filter [PRA 68, 064303 (2003)]. The general optimization approach can easily be applied to other areas of interest, such as quantum error correction, cryptography, and metrology [arXiv:0807.4906, PRL 99 070801 (2007)].
