Nonunitary quantum circuit

Abstract

A quantum circuit is generalized to a nonunitary one whose constituents are nonunitary gates operated by quantum measurement. It is shown that a specific type of one-qubit nonunitary gates, the controlled-NOT gate, as well as all one-qubit unitary gates constitute a universal set of gates for the nonunitary quantum circuit, without the necessity of introducing ancilla qubits. A reversing measurement scheme is used to improve the probability of successful nonunitary gate operation. A quantum NAND gate and Abrams-Lloyd's nonlinear gate are analyzed as examples. Our nonunitary circuit can be used to reduce the qubit overhead needed to ensure fault-tolerant quantum computation.