Optimal ancilla-free Pauli+V circuits for axial rotations

We address the problem of optimal representation of single-qubit rotations in a certain unitary basis consisting of the so-called V gates and Pauli matrices. The V matrices were proposed by Lubotsky, Philips, and Sarnak [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 40, 401–420 (1987)] as a purely geometric construct in 1987 and recently found applications in quantum computation. They allow for exceptionally simple quantum circuit synthesis algorithms based on quaternionic factorization. We adapt the deterministic-search technique initially proposed by Ross and Selinger to synthesize approximating Pauli+V circuits of optimal depth for single-qubit axial rotations. Our synthesis procedure based on simple SL₂(ℤ) geometry is almost elementary