We introduce a quantum cellular automaton that achieves approximate phase-covariant cloning of qubits. The automaton is optimized for 1-to-2N economical cloning. The use of the automaton for cloning allows us to exploit different foliations for improving the performance with given resources.
There exists an index theory to classify strictly local quantum cellular automata in one dimension. We consider two classification questions. First, we study to what extent this index theory can be applied in higher dimensions via dimensional reducti
on, finding a classification by the first homology group of the manifold modulo torsion. Second, in two dimensions, we show that an extension of this index theory (including torsion) fully classifies quantum cellular automata, at least in the absence of fermionic degrees of freedom. This complete classification in one and two dimensions by index theory is not expected to extend to higher dimensions due to recent evidence of a nontrivial automaton in three dimensions. Finally, we discuss some group theoretical aspects of the classification of quantum cellular automata and consider these automata on higher dimensional real projective spaces.
One can think of some physical evolutions as being the emergent-effective result of a microscopic discrete model. Inspired by classical coarse-graining procedures, we provide a simple procedure to coarse-grain color-blind quantum cellular automata th
at follow Goldilocks rules. The procedure consists in (i) space-time grouping the quantum cellular automaton (QCA) in cells of size $N$; (ii) projecting the states of a cell onto its borders, connecting them with the fine dynamics; (iii) describing the overall dynamics by the border states, that we call signals; and (iv) constructing the coarse-grained dynamics for different sizes $N$ of the cells. A byproduct of this simple toy-model is a general discrete analog of the Stokes law. Moreover we prove that in the spacetime limit, the automaton converges to a Dirac free Hamiltonian. The QCA we introduce here can be implemented by present-day quantum platforms, such as Rydberg arrays, trapped ions, and superconducting qbits. We hope our study can pave the way to a richer understanding of those systems with limited resolution.
In a series of recent papers it has been shown how free quantum field theory can be derived without using mechanical primitives (including space-time, special relativity, quantization rules, etc.), but only considering the easiest quantum algorithm e
ncompassing a countable set of quantum systems whose network of interactions satisfies the simple principles of unitarity, homogeneity, locality, and isotropy. This has opened the route to extending the axiomatic information-theoretic derivation of the quantum theory of abstract systems to include quantum field theory. The inherent discrete nature of the informational axiomatization leads to an extension of quantum field theory to a quantum cellular automata theory, where the usual field theory is recovered in a regime where the discrete structure of the automata cannot be probed. A simple heuristic argument sets the scale of discreteness to the Planck scale, and the customary physical regime where discreteness is not visible is the relativistic one of small wavevectors. In this paper we provide a thorough derivation from principles that in the most general case the graph of the quantum cellular automaton is the Cayley graph of a finitely presented group, and showing how for the case corresponding to Euclidean emergent space (where the group resorts to an Abelian one) the automata leads to Weyl, Dirac and Maxwell field dynamics in the relativistic limit. We conclude with some perspectives towards the more general scenario of non-linear automata for interacting quantum field theory.
We construct a three-dimensional quantum cellular automaton (QCA), an automorphism of the local operator algebra on a lattice of qubits, which disentangles the ground state of the Walker-Wang three fermion model. We show that if this QCA can be reali
zed by a quantum circuit of constant depth, then there exists a two-dimensional commuting projector Hamiltonian which realizes the three fermion topological order which is widely believed not to be possible. We conjecture in accordance with this belief that this QCA is not a quantum circuit of constant depth, and we provide two further pieces of evidence to support the conjecture. We show that this QCA maps every local Pauli operator to a local Pauli operator, but is not a Clifford circuit of constant depth. Further, we show that if the three-dimensional QCA can be realized by a quantum circuit of constant depth, then there exists a two-dimensional QCA acting on fermionic degrees of freedom which cannot be realized by a quantum circuit of constant depth; i.e., we prove the existence of a nontrivial QCA in either three or two dimensions. The square of our three-dimensional QCA can be realized by a quantum circuit of constant depth, and this suggests the existence of a $mathbb{Z}_2$ invariant of a QCA in higher dimensions, totally distinct from the classification by positive rationals (i.e., by one integer index for each prime) in one dimension. In an appendix, unrelated to the main body of this paper, we give a fermionic generalization of a result of Bravyi and Vyalyi on ground states of 2-local commuting Hamiltonians.
We consider the group structure of quantum cellular automata (QCA) modulo circuits and show that it is abelian even without assuming the presence of ancillas, at least for most reasonable choices of control space; this is a corollary of a general met
hod of ancilla removal. Further, we show how to define a group of QCA that is well-defined without needing to use families, by showing how to construct a coherent family containing an arbitrary finite QCA; the coherent family consists of QCA on progressively finer systems of qudits where any two members are related by a shallow quantum circuit. This construction applied to translation invariant QCA shows that all translation invariant QCA in three dimensions and all translation invariant Clifford QCA in any dimension are coherent.