Quantum chaos is quantum

Abstract

It is well known that a quantum circuit on N qubits composed of Clifford gates with the addition of k non Clifford gates can be simulated on a classical computer by an algorithm scaling as poly(N)exp (k)[1]. We show that, for a quantum circuit to simulate quantum chaotic behavior, it is both necessary and sufficient that k = Θ(N). This result implies the impossibility of simulating quantum chaos on a classical computer.