Classical shadows with symmetries

Abstract

Classical shadows (CS) have emerged as a powerful way to estimate many properties of quantum states based on random measurements and classical post-processing. In their original formulation, they come with optimal (or close to) sampling complexity guarantees for generic states and generic observables. Still, it is natural to expect to even further lower sampling requirements when equipped with a priori knowledge regarding either the underlying state or the observables. Here, we consider the case where such knowledge is provided in terms of symmetries of the unknown state or of the observables. Criterion and guidelines for symmetric shadows are provided. As a concrete example we focus on the case of permutation invariance (PI), and detail constructions of several families of PI-CSs. In particular, building on results obtained in the field of PI quantum tomography, we develop and study shallow PI-CS protocol. Benefits of these symmetric CS are demonstrated compared to established CS protocols showcasing vastly improved performances.