Equivalence of continuous- and discrete-variable gate-based quantum computers with finite energy

Abstract

Continuous systems are studied in many branches of modern physics, such as high-energy physics, cosmology, condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, and field theories. Such systems are expected to benefit from the substantial advantages in computational power of quantum computers. The continuous-variable paradigm of quantum computation provides the most natural computational formalism for these tasks. However, most existing quantum hardware is based on discrete-variable systems. We address this fundamental discrepancy by providing a rigorous framework for translating native continuous-variable algorithms onto qubit-based quantum processors. This mapping is constructed from a gate-based model of continuous-variable quantum computers, consisting of states and operations built from a polynomial sequence of elementary gates in a finite set, with total energy polynomial in the number of modes. We prove that, under realistic constraints, a gate-based model of continuous-variable quantum computers can be efficiently simulated using discrete-variable devices, thereby establishing a computational equivalence between these paradigms.