On sets of maximally commuting and anticommuting Pauli operators

Abstract

In this work, we study the structure and cardinality of maximal sets of commuting and anticommuting Paulis in the setting of the abelian Pauli group. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for anticommuting sets to be maximal and present an efficient algorithm for generating anticommuting sets of maximum size. As a theoretical tool, we introduce commutativity maps and study properties of maps associated with elements in the cosets with respect to anticommuting minimal generating sets. We also derive expressions for the number of distinct sets of commuting and anticommuting abelian Paulis of a given size.