There is no simulation of n-qubit operations by a single Hamiltonian with 2-spin interaction

Abstract

Today's devices for quantum computing are still far from implementing useful and powerful quantum algorithms. Decoherence and the wish to resist the effects of errors in a system of quantum bits incurs a lot of overhead in the number of gates and qubits. From a theoretical perspective, controlled quantum simulation raises the hope to simulate the unitary quantum operationes generated by a Hamiltonian with 3-body interaction with a suitably designed element that is constructed of only 2-body interactions. That replacement would happen without any additional gates, and its possibility would be due to the ambiguity of the unit element of the Lie group connected with the algebra of traceless hermitian matrices. We show that this hope is void, and give a general proof for this for any order of interaction.