Simulating Quantum Circuits by Shuffling Paulis

Abstract: Verification of NISQ era quantum devices demands fast classical simulation of large noisy quantum circuits. We present an algorithm based on the stabilizer formalism that can efficiently simulate noisy stabilizer circuits. Additionally, the protocol can efficiently simulate a large set of multi-qubit mixed states that are not mixtures of stabilizer states. The existence of these 'bound states' was previously only known for odd-dimensional systems like qutrits. The algorithm also has the favorable property that circuits with depolarizing noise are simulated much faster than unitary circuits. This work builds upon a similar algorithm by Bennink et al. (Phys. Rev. A 95, 062337) and utilizes a framework by Pashayan et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 070501).