Quantum Wasserstein distance between unitary operations

Abstract

Quantifying the effect of noise on unitary operations is an essential task in quantum information processing. We propose the quantum Wasserstein distance between unitary operations, which shows an explanation for quantum circuit complexity and characterizes local distinguishability of multi-qudit operations. We show analytical calculation of the distance between identity and widely-used quantum gates including SWAP, CNOT, and other controlled gates. As an application, we estimate the closeness between quantum gates in circuit, and show that the noisy operation simulates the ideal one well when they become close under the distance. Further we introduce the $W_1$ error rate by the distance, and establish the relation between the $W_1$ error rate and two practical cost measures of recovery operation in quantum error-correction under typical noise scenarios.