Miriam Backens

The ZX-calculus is complete for stabilizer quantum mechanics

The ZX-calculus is a graphical calculus for reasoning about quantum systems and processes. It is known to be universal for pure state qubit quantum mechanics (QM), meaning any pure state, unitary operation and post-selected pure projective measurement can be expressed in the ZX-calculus. The calculus is also sound, i.e. any equality that can be derived graphically can also be derived using matrix mechanics. Here, we show that the ZX-calculus is complete for pure qubit stabilizer QM, meaning any equality that can be derived using matrices can also be derived pictorially. The proof relies on bringing diagrams into a normal form based on graph states and local Clifford operations.

The ZX−calculus is complete for the single−qubit Clifford+T group

The ZX-calculus is a graphical calculus for reasoning about pure state qubit quantum mechanics. It is complete for pure qubit stabilizer quantum mechanics, meaning any equality involving only stabilizer operations that can be derived using matrices can also be derived pictorially. Stabilizer operations include the unitary Clifford group, as well as preparation of qubits in the state |0>, and measurements in the computational basis. For general pure state qubit quantum mechanics, the ZX-calculus is incomplete: there exist equalities involving non-stabilizer unitary operations on single qubits which cannot be derived from the current rule set for the ZX-calculus. Here, we show that the ZX-calculus for single qubits remains complete upon adding the operator T to the single-qubit stabilizer operations. This is particularly interesting as the resulting single-qubit Clifford+T group is approximately universal, i.e. any unitary single-qubit operator can be approximated to arbitrary accuracy using only Clifford operators and T.

A Complete Graphical Calculus for Spekkens’ Toy Bit Theory

While quantum theory cannot be described by a local hidden variable model, it is nevertheless possible to construct such models that exhibit features commonly associated with quantum mechanics. These models are also used to explore the question of

A New Holant Dichotomy Inspired by Quantum Computation

\psi

A simplified stabilizer ZX-calculus

ψ-ontic versus

Towards a Minimal Stabilizer ZX-calculus

\psi