Efficient eigenvalue determination for arbitrary Pauli products based on generalized spin-spin interactions

Abstract: Effective spin-spin interactions between N+1 qubits enable the determination of the eigenvalue of an arbitrary Pauli product of dimension N with a constant, small number of multi-qubit gates that is independent of N and encodes the eigenvalue in the measurement basis states of an extra ancilla qubit. Such interactions are available whenever qubits can be coupled to a shared harmonic oscillator, a situation that can be realized in several physical qubit implementations. For example, suitable interactions have already been realized for up to 14 qubits in ion traps. It should be possible to implement stabilizer codes for quantum error correction with a constant number of multi-qubit gates, in contrast to typical constructions using a number of two-qubit gates that increases as a function of N. The special case of finding the parity of N qubits only requires a small number of operations that is independent of N. This compares favorably to algorithms for computing the parity on conventional machines, which implies a genuine quantum advantage.