Quantum Circuit Representation of Combinatorial Matrix Functions

Abstract

Permanents, hafnians, and loop-hafnians are combinatorial matrix functions closely related to perfect matchings in graphs. These matrix functions arise in the quantum amplitudes of boson configurations in bosonic networks, and the classical hardness of computing them has been used to establish hardness arguments for boson sampling and Gaussian boson sampling. Remarkably, these matrix functions also appear in quantum spin systems. Previous work has shown that transition amplitudes in bipartite Ising and Heisenberg models are proportional to the permanent of the corresponding interaction matrix. Here, we extend the Ising interaction structure beyond the bipartite case to generate hafnians and loop-hafnians. This extension relies on the fact that the Ising model reflects the underlying graph structure and that each matrix function arises naturally from quantum superposition. In particular, since the graph corresponding to the loop-hafnian involves self-loops, we design the interaction structure to incorporate them while preserving the two-body XX form. Through this construction, we unify the three matrix functions within a single Ising-model framework, based on the nested inclusion relations among the corresponding classes of graphs. We further show that the quantum spin dynamics of our model, including the preparation of the nontrivial output state for the loop-hafnian case, can be simulated on a quantum circuit using only $\mathcal{O}(N^2)$ gates.