Resource requirements for a fault-tolerant quantum Fourier transform
Hayato Goto · Physical Review A · 2014
We investigate resource requirements for a fault-tolerant quantum Fourier transform. The quantum Fourier transform is a basic subroutine for quantum algorithms which provide an exponential speedup over known classical ones, such as Shor's algorithm for factoring. To implement single-qubit rotations required for a quantum Fourier transform in a fault-tolerant manner, we consider two types of approaches: gate synthesis and state distillation. While the gate synthesis approximates single-qubit rotations with basic quantum operations, the state distillation allows one to perform single-qubit rotations for a quantum Fourier transform exactly. It is unknown, however, which approach is better for a quantum Fourier transform. Here we develop a state-distillation method optimized for a quantum Fourier transform and compare this performance with those of state-of-the-art techniques for gate synthesis without and with ancillary states (ancillas). The performance is evaluated with the resource requirement for a quantum Fourier transform. The resource is measured by the total number of $\ensuremath{\pi}/8$ gates denoted by $T$, which is called the $T$ count. Contrary to the expectation, the $T$ count for the state distillation is considerably larger than those for the ancilla-free and ancilla-assisted gate synthesis. Thus, we conclude that the ancilla-assisted gate synthesis is a better approach to a fault-tolerant quantum Fourier transform.