Quantum gates from the middle convolution of twisted Burau representations

Abstract

We study braid representations obtained from character-twisted Burau inputs by the Katz-Long-Moody (KLM) construction, which corresponds to multiplicative middle convolution for KZ-type equations. For $n\ge2$, let $q=e^{2\pi ia}$, $\tau=e^{2\pi ic}$, where $a,c>0$ and $nc+(n+1)a<1$. Known form and signature results give a positive-definite invariant form for $\lambda=e^{2\pi il}$, $0<l<1-nc-(n+1)a$. For fixed input, unitary realizations are unique up to simultaneous unitary conjugation. We address two questions. First, we determine spectra and invariant summands of the $M=n(n+1)$-dimensional output. The generator spectrum recovers $(q,\tau)$. The output decomposes into two trivial and two reduced Burau summands, and an $n(n-1)$-dimensional summand isomorphic to Long's reduced construction, generically irreducible for $n=3,4$. If $a$ or $c$ is irrational, every generator is non-Clifford in every finite-dimensional Weyl-Heisenberg frame; if $1,a,c$ are linearly independent over $\mathbb{Q}$, every generator is entangling for every nontrivial bipartition. The full braid image is not projectively dense. For general positive-definite unitary inputs, irreducibility of the full braid output at a nonexceptional parameter forces the free-group input operators to commute. Second, we construct one orthonormal basis giving each generator one block of size $2(n+1)$, $n-2$ blocks of size two, and identity elsewhere. Each generator is a product of $2n$ rank-one phase reflections and, in a fixed binary encoding, an $O(M)$-length word in one-qubit unitaries and CNOTs, without auxiliary qubits and including direction preparation and its inverse. We give finite-alphabet approximation, conditioning and error bounds, and a matched-resource comparison with a Quantum Shannon reference compiler. The gate bound is exponential in the encoded qubit count and excludes classical preprocessing.