  Clifford gates are a winsome class of quantum operations combining
mathematical elegance with physical significance. The Gottesman-Knill theorem
asserts that Clifford computations can be classically efficiently simulated but
this is true only in a suitably restricted setting. Here we consider Clifford
computations with a variety of additional ingredients: (a) strong vs. weak
simulation, (b) inputs being computational basis states vs. general product
states, (c) adaptive vs. non-adaptive choices of gates for circuits involving
intermediate measurements, (d) single line outputs vs. multi-line outputs. We
consider the classical simulation complexity of all combinations of these
ingredients and show that many are not classically efficiently simulatable
(subject to common complexity assumptions such as P not equal to NP). Our
results reveal a surprising proximity of classical to quantum computing power
viz. a class of classically simulatable quantum circuits which yields universal
quantum computation if extended by a purely classical additional ingredient
that does not extend the class of quantum processes occurring.

Quantum Physics;Computational Complexity