Near-Optimal Simultaneous Estimation of Quantum State Moments

Xiao Shi, Jiyu Jiang, Xian Wu, Jingu Xie, Hongshun Yao, Xin Wang (Sep 30 2025).

Abstract: Estimating nonlinear properties such as Rényi entropies and observable-weighted moments serves as a central strategy for spectrum spectroscopy, which is fundamental to property prediction and analysis in quantum information science, statistical mechanics, and many-body physics. However, existing approaches are susceptible to noise and require significant resources, making them challenging for near-term quantum hardware. In this work, we introduce a framework for resource-efficient simultaneous estimation of quantum state moments via qubit reuse. For an $m$-qubit quantum state $\rho$, our method achieves the simultaneous estimation of the full hierarchy of moments $\text{Tr}(\rho^2), \dots, \text{Tr}(\rho^k)$, as well as arbitrary polynomial functionals and their observable-weighted counterparts. By leveraging qubit reset operations, our core circuit for simultaneous moment estimation requires only $2m+1$ physical qubits and $\mathcal{O}(k)$ CSWAP gates, achieving a near-optimal sample complexity of $\mathcal{O}(k \log k / \varepsilon^2)$. We demonstrate this protocol's utility by showing that the estimated moments yield tight bounds on a state's maximum eigenvalue and present applications in quantum virtual cooling to access low-energy states of the Heisenberg model. Furthermore, we show the protocol's viability on near-term quantum hardware by experimentally measuring higher-order Rényi entropy on a superconducting quantum processor. Our method provides a scalable and resource-efficient route to quantum system characterization and spectroscopy on near-term quantum hardware.

Arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.24842