# How to implement a exponential of a hamiltonian, but non-unitary, matrix in QISKIT?

I need a way to implement exponential of a matrix so that I can create a gate that is analogous to rotation using that matrix, similar to how rotation in the $$x$$ axis uses the Pauli-$$X$$ gate. This is one of the matrices that I want to implement the exponential.

$$A = \frac{1}{2\sqrt{2}}\begin{pmatrix} 0 & 1 & 1 & 0\\ 1 & 0 & 0 & 1\\ 1 & 0 & 0 & 1\\ 0 & 1 & 1 & 0 \end{pmatrix}$$

I want to to make a circuit that computes $$e^{i \phi A}$$

Hamiltonian needs to be Hermitian not unitary. Matrix $$A$$ is Hermitian so it can be exponentiated using the classes in qiskit's opflow.

Note that, your matrix can be written as $$A = \frac{1}{2\sqrt{2}}(I \otimes X + X \otimes I)$$

So the following circuit computes $$e^{-i \phi A}$$

from qiskit.opflow import I, X
from qiskit.opflow import PauliTrotterEvolution, Suzuki
from qiskit.circuit import Parameter
from numpy import sqrt

_const = 1 / (2 * sqrt(2))
A = _const * (I ^ X) + _const * (X ^ I)

phi = Parameter('ϕ')

evolution_op = (phi * A).exp_i() # exp(-iϕA)

trotterized_op = PauliTrotterEvolution(trotter_mode = Suzuki(order = 1)).convert(evolution_op)
circ = trotterized_op.to_circuit()
circ.draw('mpl')


• Sorry, in the question I meant hermitian, not hamiltonian. I'll try this solution, it looks like it'll work. Feb 14, 2022 at 12:21

Or, if you have the actual matrix representation you can do

from qiskit.circuit import QuantumCircuit

phi = # some numerical value