Designing tight frames for quantum computing

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to explore the implementation of a special kind of quantum measurements, so called harmonic tight frames. To achieve this goal, representation theory is addressed, emphasizing its construction from irreducible representations and the relations they satisfy. These tools simplify the study due to the existence of symmetries, leading to the concept of group frames, defined as orbits under the unitary action of a group and characterized by their symmetry groups. Among the various groups, the simplest are the abelian ones, giving rise to harmonic frames, which are analyzed through the classification theorem of abelian groups and the characters of their irreducible representations. In the quantum mechanics context, the frame elements can be interpreted as pure states of a system. Therefore, the necessary and sufficient conditions for separability are explored, as separable states are easier to implement due to their local nature. Alternatively, when viewing frames as measurements, the concept of POVMs and Naimark's theorem are studied as key tools for designing measurements in quantum computers. Using this knowledge, a characterization of the harmonic frames is given from the abelian group structure theorem, which allows obtaining a necessary and sufficient condition for their separability. The conditions of maximum entanglement of these states for bipartite systems are also studied, obtaining a necessary condition on the dimensions of the subsystems. Finally, a quantum circuit is obtained that allows implementing the harmonic frames associated to cyclic groups as POVMs using a Fourier matrix and a permutation matrix. We conclude by giving simple examples where the results are applied to quantum computers and proposing future avenues of research that could serve to improve the circuit design and extend it to the case of all harmonic frames.