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Nonuniversality from conserved superoperators in unitary circuits

Marco Lastres, Frank Pollmann, and Sanjay Moudgalya*

  • *Contact author: sanjay.moudgalya@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. B 113, 014310 – Published 16 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8jfm-l4ml

Abstract

An important result in the theory of quantum control is the “universality” of 2-local unitary gates, i.e., the fact that any global unitary evolution of a system of L qudits can be implemented by composition of 2-local unitary gates. Surprisingly, recent results have shown that universality can break down in the presence of symmetries: in general, not all globally symmetric unitaries can be constructed using k-local symmetric unitary gates. This also restricts the dynamics that can be implemented by symmetric local Hamiltonians. In this paper, we show that obstructions to universality in such settings can in general be understood in terms of superoperator symmetries associated with unitary evolution by restricted sets of gates. These superoperator symmetries lead to block decompositions of the operator Hilbert space, which dictate the connectivity of operator space, and hence the structure of the dynamical Lie algebra. We demonstrate this explicitly in several examples by systematically deriving the superoperator symmetries from the gate structure using the framework of commutant algebras, which has been used to systematically derive symmetries in other quantum many-body systems. We clearly delineate two different types of nonuniversality, which stem from different structures of the superoperator symmetries, and discuss its signatures in physical observables. In all, our work establishes a comprehensive framework to explore the universality of unitary circuits and derive physical consequences of its absence.

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Phys. Rev. B 113, 014310– Published 16 January, 2026
  • Received 24 January 2025
  • Revised 7 November 2025
  • Accepted 9 December 2025
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