The Solovay–Kitaev theorem

Abstract

In Chapter 4 we showed that an arbitrary unitary operation U may be implemented on a quantum computer using a circuit consisting of single qubit and controlled- not gates. Such universality results are important because they ensure the equivalence of apparently different models of quantum computation. For example, the universality results ensure that a quantum computer programmer may design quantum circuits containing gates which have four input and output qubits, confident that such gates can be simulated by a constant number of controlled- not and single qubit unitary gates. An unsatisfactory aspect of the universality of controlled- not and single qubit unitary gates is that the single qubit gates form a continuum , while the methods for fault-tolerant quantum computation described in Chapter 10 work only for a discrete set of gates. Fortunately, also in Chapter 4 we saw that any single qubit gate may be approximated to arbitrary accuracy using a finite set of gates, such as the controlled- not gate, Hadamard gate H , phase gate S , and π/8 gate. We also gave a heuristic argument that approximating the chosen single qubit gate to an accuracy ∈ required only Θ(1/∈) gates chosen from the finite set. Furthermore, in Chapter 10 we showed that the controlled- not , Hadamard, phase and π/8 gates may be implemented in a fault-tolerant manner.