Optimizing linear optics quantum gates

In this Letter, the problem of finding optimal success probabilities of linear optics quantum gates is linked to the theory of convex optimization. It is shown that by exploiting this link, upper bounds for the success probability of networks realizing single-mode gates can be derived, which hold in generality for postselected networks of arbitrary size, any number of auxiliary modes, and arbitrary photon numbers. As a corollary, the previously formulated conjecture is proven that the optimal success probability of a nonlinear sign shift without feedforward is 1/4, a gate playing the central role in the scheme of Knill-Laflamme-Milburn for quantum computation. The concept of Lagrange duality is shown to be applicable to provide rigorous proofs for such bounds, although the original problem is a difficult nonconvex problem in infinitely many objective variables. The versatility of this approach is demonstrated.