Direct dialling of Haar random unitary matrices

Abstract

Random unitary matrices find a number of applications in quantum information science, and are central to the recently defined boson sampling algorithm for photons in linear optics. We describe an operationally simple method to directly implement Haar random unitary matrices in optical circuits, with no requirement for prior or explicit matrix calculations. Our physically motivated and compact representation directly maps independent probability density functions for parameters in Haar random unitary matrices, to optical circuit components. We go on to extend the results to the case of random unitaries for qubits.