Lower Bounds on Stabilizer Rank

TL;DR

This paper establishes new linear lower bounds on the stabilizer rank of tensor powers of magic states, impacting classical simulation complexity of quantum circuits, and introduces bounds for approximate stabilizer rank.

Contribution

It proves the first non-trivial lower bounds for stabilizer rank and approximate stabilizer rank, improving previous bounds and employing novel analytical techniques.

Findings

Lower bound of Ω(n) on stabilizer rank of tensor powers.

First non-trivial lower bound for approximate stabilizer rank.

Techniques involve boolean function analysis and complexity theory.

Abstract

The stabilizer rank of a quantum state $\psi$ is the minimal $r$ such that $\left| \psi \right \rangle = \sum_{j=1}^r c_j \left|\varphi_j \right\rangle$ for $c_j \in \mathbb{C}$ and stabilizer states $\varphi_j$. The running time of several classical simulation methods for quantum circuits is determined by the stabilizer rank of the $n$-th tensor power of single-qubit magic states. We prove a lower bound of $\Omega(n)$ on the stabilizer rank of such states, improving a previous lower bound of $\Omega(\sqrt{n})$ of Bravyi, Smith and Smolin (arXiv:1506.01396). Further, we prove that for a sufficiently small constant $\delta$, the stabilizer rank of any state which is $\delta$-close to those states is $\Omega(\sqrt{n}/\log n)$. This is the first non-trivial lower bound for approximate stabilizer rank. Our techniques rely on the representation of stabilizer states as quadratic functions over affine subspaces of $\mathbb{F}_2^n$, and we use tools from analysis of boolean functions and complexity theory. The proof of the first result involves a careful analysis of directional derivatives of quadratic polynomials, whereas the proof of the second result uses Razborov-Smolensky low degree polynomial approximations and correlation bounds against the majority function.