The QCA conjecture on the spectrum of quantum cellular automata

For each spatial dimension dd, let Q(Zd)\mathcal Q^*(\mathbb Z^d) be the group of quantum cellular automata and let C(Zd)\mathcal C^*(\mathbb Z^d) be its normal subgroup of quantum circuits. Let QCA(Zd)\mathrm{QCA}(\mathbb Z^d) denote a proposed space-level construction of the QCA classification group. The QCA conjecture. There is a canonical isomorphism

π0(QCA(Zd))Q(Zd)/C(Zd).\pi_0(\mathrm{QCA}(\mathbb Z^d))\cong \mathcal Q^*(\mathbb Z^d)/\mathcal C^*(\mathbb Z^d).

Moreover, these spaces assemble naturally into an Ω\Omega-spectrum QCA={QCA(Zd)}d0\mathbb{QCA}=\{\mathrm{QCA}(\mathbb Z^d)\}_{d\ge 0}. This conjecture would give a spectrum-level classification of QCA and organize their groups across spatial dimensions. The source describes substantial evidence and special cases, including Clifford QCA, but leaves the general statement open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Mattie Ji and Bowen Yang, “Quantum Cellular Automata: The Group, the Space, and the Spectrum”, arXiv:2602.16572 (2026).

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