Depicting qudit quantum mechanics and mutually unbiased qudit theories

Abstract: We generalize the ZX calculus to quantum systems of dimension higher than two. The resulting calculus is sound and universal for quantum mechanics. We define the notion of a mutually unbiased qudit theory and study two particular instances of these theories in detail: qudit stabilizer quantum mechanics and Spekkens-Schreiber toy theory for dits. The calculus allows us to analyze the structure of qudit stabilizer quantum mechanics and provides a geometrical picture of qudit stabilizer theory using D-toruses, which generalizes the Bloch sphere picture for qubit stabilizer quantum mechanics. We also use our framework to describe generalizations of Spekkens toy theory to higher dimensional systems. This gives a novel proof that qudit stabilizer quantum mechanics and Spekkens-Schreiber toy theory for dits are operationally equivalent in three dimensions. The qudit pictorial calculus is a useful tool to study quantum foundations, understand the relationship between qubit and qudit quantum mechanics, and provide a novel, high level description of quantum information protocols.