Unitary causal decompositions: a characterisation via lattice theory

Quantum 10, 2218 (2026). https://doi.org/10.22331/q-2026-09-30-2218 If a unitary transformation has a circuit representation with no directed path from input $a$ to output $b$, then $a$ does not influence $b$ through the overall unitary. Conversely, if a unitary satisfies a number of no-influence conditions, it is natural to wonder whether a circuit decomposition exists in which all of them are represented by absences of paths. Such decompositions are known as causal decompositions; determining their existence in general is a central open problem in the study of causal structure in quantum theory. We present progress towards a general solution by considering the special case of unitary causal decompositions, i.e. decompositions in terms of unitary circuits in the traditional quantum circuit formalism that do not require the generalisation to 'extended' or 'routed' quantum circuits prompted by earlier research on this topic. We identify a combinatorial condition that characterises precisely those sets of no-influence constraints $G$ for which any unitary transformation satisfying $G$ admits a unitary causal decomposition representing the constraints. Our approach is systematic, grounded in lattice theory and finite-dimensional operator algebra, and offers hope for extensions to more general (e.g. routed unitary) causal decompositions in the future.

If a unitary transformation has a circuit representation with no directed path from input $a$ to output $b$, then $a$ does not influence $b$ through the overall unitary. Conversely, if a unitary satisfies a number of no-influence conditions, it is natural to wonder whether a circuit decomposition exists in which all of them are represented by absences of paths. Such decompositions are known as causal decompositions; determining their existence in general is a central open problem in the study of causal structure in quantum theory. We present progress towards a general solution by considering the special case of unitary causal decompositions, i.e. decompositions in terms of unitary circuits in the traditional quantum circuit formalism that do not require the generalisation to 'extended' or 'routed' quantum circuits prompted by earlier research on this topic. We identify a combinatorial condition that characterises precisely those sets of no-influence constraints $G$ for which any unitary transformation satisfying $G$ admits a unitary causal decomposition representing the constraints. Our approach is systematic, grounded in lattice theory and finite-dimensional operator algebra, and offers hope for extensions to more general (e.g. routed unitary) causal decompositions in the future.

Quantum theory famously evades the classical causal explanations that we use to understand phenomena in other areas of science. To get to grips with quantum theory, it is therefore necessary to understand the theory's own take on causation. This paper compares two approaches to causal structure in the literature on quantum foundations. One is 'bottom-up', in that it understands causal structure as specifying how to build a process out of smaller ones. The other is 'top-down', defining causal structure as the dependency between inputs and outputs of a black box. In the paper we follow up on previous work investigating when a process with top-down constraints can be constructed in the bottom-up sense.

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Unitary causal decompositions: a characterisation via lattice theory

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