Optimal Two-Qubit Gate-Cutting Cost and Measures of Nonlocality

Abstract

Circuit cutting enables quantum computations to be decomposed into smaller subcircuits at the cost of additional sampling overhead. Gate-cutting provides one such approach by replacing nonlocal gates with quasiprobability decompositions of local operations. Starting from the known optimal two-qubit gate-cutting formula, we derive complete sharp lower and upper envelopes relating the quasiprobability extent $\gamma$ to five established descriptors: entangling power, gate typicality, operator entanglement, Schmidt strength, and maximum product-input concurrence. We recast $\gamma$ as a R\'enyi-$1/2$ functional of the operator-Schmidt spectrum and show how the physical constraints on two-qubit spectra sharpen generic entropy bounds and select a small set of recurring extremal Cartan families. None of the five descriptors generically determines $\gamma$ alone, but each imposes exact constraints, revealing how substantially the optimal gate-cutting cost can vary between gates with similar nonlocal characteristics.