Minimax Quantum State Tomography with Periodic Clifford Measurements

Abstract

Quantum state tomography provides a foundation for characterizing state preparation and predicting measurement outcomes. We characterize the minimax expected trace norm risk of quantum state tomography over classes with polynomial spectral decay under randomized nonadaptive single copy measurements. Under an explicit sufficient block size condition for the two layer periodic Clifford ensemble, we establish statewise expected trace norm oracle inequalities for operator norm minimum distance and measurement weighted projected least squares, with bounds that depend on each state's actual spectral tail, while the estimators require no prior knowledge of the state's structural characteristics, including its rank, eigenbasis, or spectral structure. Over these polynomial spectral decay classes, both estimators attain the minimax expected trace norm rates up to constants. As a direct consequence, the same estimators attain the minimax rate over every fixed rank constrained class, while remaining adaptive to the unknown structural characteristics of the state. For admissible logarithmic block sizes, the periodic Clifford measurements attain these guarantees with logarithmic elementary gate depth. The main technical ingredient is a uniform bound on the fourth moment of projectors for the periodic Clifford ensemble. The bound is sharp in dimension and holds for arbitrary test states, including those entangled across blocks. Covariance concentration and positivity yield adaptive oracle bounds, while a shared rotation information argument on spectral tail packings establishes matching lower bounds. We also provide polynomial time reconstruction algorithms, numerical comparisons, and Lean formalizations of all labeled theoretical results.