How smooth is quantum complexity?

Vir B. Bulchandani, S. L. Sondhi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

The “quantum complexity” of a unitary operator measures the difficulty of its construction from a set of elementary quantum gates. While the notion of quantum complexity was first introduced as a quantum generalization of the classical computational complexity, it has since been argued to hold a fundamental significance in its own right, as a physical quantity analogous to the thermodynamic entropy. In this paper, we present a unified perspective on various notions of quantum complexity, viewed as functions on the space of unitary operators. One striking feature of these functions is that they can exhibit non-smooth and even fractal behaviour. We use ideas from Diophantine approximation theory and sub-Riemannian geometry to rigorously quantify this lack of smoothness. Implications for the physical meaning of quantum complexity are discussed.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number230
JournalJournal of High Energy Physics
Volume2021
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2021
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Keywords

  • AdS-CFT Correspondence
  • Differential and Algebraic Geometry

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