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arXiv:2011.10507 · PRX Quantum

Digital-Analog Quantum Simulations Using the Cross-Resonance Effect

Tasio Gonzalez-Raya, Rodrigo Asensio-Perea, Ana Martin, Lucas C. Céleri, Mikel Sanz, Pavel Lougovski, Eugene Dumitrescu

Published May 27, 2021• 27 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Digital-analog quantum computation aims to reduce the currently infeasible resource requirements needed for near-term quantum information processing by replacing sequences of one-and two-qubit gates with a unitary transformation generated by the systems' underlying Hamiltonian.Inspired by this paradigm, we consider superconducting architectures and extend the cross-resonance effect, up to first order in perturbation theory, from a two-qubit interaction to an analog Hamiltonian acting on onedimensional (1D) chains and two-dimensional (2D) square lattices, which, in an appropriate reference frame, results in a purely two-local Hamiltonian.By augmenting the analog Hamiltonian dynamics with single-qubit gates we show how one may generate a larger variety of distinct analog Hamiltonians.We then synthesize unitary sequences, in which we toggle between the various analog Hamiltonians as needed, simulating the dynamics of Ising, XY, and Heisenberg spin models.Our dynamics simulations are Trotter error-free for the Ising and XY models in 1D.We also show that the Trotter errors for 2D XY and 1D Heisenberg chains are reduced, with respect to a digital decomposition, by a constant factor.In order to realize these important near-term speedups, we discuss the practical considerations needed to accurately characterize and calibrate our analog Hamiltonians for use in quantum simulations.We conclude with a discussion of how the Hamiltonian toggling techniques could be extended to derive new analog Hamiltonians, which may be of use in more complex digital-analog quantum simulations for various models of interacting spins.

DOI
10.1103/prxquantum.2.020328

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Digital-analog quantum computation aims to reduce the currently infeasible resource requirements needed for near-term quantum information processing by replacing sequences of one-and two-qubit gates with a unitary transformation generated by the systems' underlying Hamiltonian.Inspired by this paradigm, we consider superconducting architectures and extend the cross-resonance effect, up to first order in perturbation theory, from a two-qubit interaction to an analog Hamiltonian acting on onedimensional (1D) chains and two-dimensional (2D) square lattices, which, in an appropriate reference frame, results in a purely two-local Hamiltonian.By augmenting the analog Hamiltonian dynamics with single-qubit gates we show how one may generate a larger variety of distinct analog Hamiltonians.We then synthesize unitary sequences, in which we toggle between the various analog Hamiltonians as needed, simulating the dynamics of Ising, XY, and Heisenberg spin models.Our dynamics simulations are Trotter error-free for the Ising and XY models in 1D.We also show that the Trotter errors for 2D XY and 1D Heisenberg chains are reduced, with respect to a digital decomposition, by a constant factor.In order to realize these important near-term speedups, we discuss the practical considerations needed to accurately characterize and calibrate our analog Hamiltonians for use in quantum simulations.We conclude with a discussion of how the Hamiltonian toggling techniques could be extended to derive new analog Hamiltonians, which may be of use in more complex digital-analog quantum simulations for various models of interacting spins.
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encodes the physics of a target Hamiltonian H. Some families of 2D spin-lattice Hamiltonians-such as the Heisenberg or XY model on the square lattice-are known to be "universal" simulators, in the sense that they can simulate any target Hamiltonian. Unfortunately, while the known simulations of 1D or 2D target Hamiltonians are efficient, they require resources growing exponentially with system sizes for target Hamiltonians with general connectivity. This leaves many important cases such as 3D or all-to-all-connected target Hamiltonians out of reach in practice. Here, we remedy this situation and show how the known 2D universal families of Hamiltonians and a new 1D family can simulate all target local Hamiltonians, with only polynomial-scaling overhead. This exponential improvement is achieved by a nonperturbative method combining the quantum phase-estimation algorithm and the circuit-to-Hamiltonian construction. Furthermore, all Hamiltonians efficiently simulable by quantum circuits, including nonlocal ones, also have efficient analog simulators in our 2D and 1D universal families. Our work establishes that analog simulations of general Hamiltonians can be made efficient, significantly expanding the application potential of analog Hamiltonian simulations in near-term quantum technologies.
Quantum simulation and computing traditionally has been based on two main paradigms, namely, digital and analog. In the digital paradigm, usually single and two-qubit gates (where qubit is an acronym for quantum bit) are employed as building blocks for scalable, universal quantum computing, although errors add up fast and error correction will be ultimately needed for scaling up. In the analog paradigm, large analog blocks are normally employed for a unitary dynamics that carries out the computation, enabling quantum operations on many qubits with reduced errors, but with the drawback of a limited choice of evolutions and lack of universality. In the past decade, a new paradigm has emerged, showing interesting possibilities for quantum simulation and computing in the near and mid term. This is the paradigm of digital-analog quantum technologies, which proposes to combine the best of both paradigms: large analog blocks, provided by native interactions of the employed quantum platform, enabling scalability, combined with digital gates, allowing for more versatility and, ultimately, universality. In this Perspective, I give an overview of the evolution of the field along the past decade, and an outlook for its future possibilities.
While quantum simulators promise to explore quantum many-body physics beyond classical computation, their capabilities are limited by the available native interactions in the hardware. On many platforms, accessible Hamiltonians are largely restricted to one- and two-body interactions, limiting access to multi-body Hamiltonians and to systems governed by simultaneous, non-commuting interaction terms that are central to condensed matter, quantum chemistry, and high-energy physics. We introduce and experimentally demonstrate a hybrid digital-analog protocol that overcomes these limitations by embedding analog evolution between shallow entangling-gate layers. This method produces effective Hamiltonians with simultaneous non-commuting three- and four-body interactions that are generated non-perturbatively and without Trotter error -- capabilities not practically attainable on near-term hardware using purely digital or purely analog schemes. We implement our scheme on a trapped-ion quantum processor and use it to realize a topological spin chain exhibiting prethermal strong zero modes persisting at high temperature, as well as models featuring three- and four-body interactions. Our hardware-agnostic and scalable method opens new routes to realizing complex many-body physics across quantum platforms.
In recent years, there has been a significant progress in the development of digital quantum processors. The state-of-the-art quantum devices are imperfect, and fully algorithmic fault-tolerant quantum computing is a matter of future. Until technology develops to the state with practical error correction, computational approaches other than the standard digital one can be used to avoid execution of the most noisy quantum operations. We demonstrate how a hybrid digital-analog approach allows simulating dynamics of a transverse-field Ising model without standard two-qubit gates, which are currently one of the most problematic building blocks of quantum circuits. We use qubit-qubit crosstalks (couplings) of IBM superconducting quantum processors to simulate Trotterized dynamics of spin clusters and then we compare the obtained results with the results of conventional digital computation based on two-qubit gates from the universal set. The comparison shows that digital-analog approach significantly outperforms standard digital approach for this simulation problem, despite of the fact that crosstalks in IBM quantum processors are small. We argue that the efficiency of digital-analog quantum computing can be improved with the help of more specialized processors, so that they can be used to efficiently implement other quantum algorithms. This indicates the prospect of a digital-to-analog strategy for near-term noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers.
Digital-analog is a quantum computational paradigm that employs the natural interaction Hamiltonian of a system as the entangling resource, combined with single qubit gates, to implement universal quantum operations. As in the case of its digital gate-based counterpart, designing digital-analog circuits that employ optimal quantum resources often requires an exceedingly large classical computational time. In this work we find a suboptimal solution to this exponentially large problem, showing that it can be solved within polynomial computational time. In particular, we provide an exact solution for the problem of expressing arbitrary two-body Hamiltonians as the sum of local unitary transformations of an arbitrary Ising Hamiltonian, with the total number of required terms being at most quadratic in system size. This allows us to design a digital-analog simulation protocol that avoids employing numerical optimization over a large parameter space at the preprocessing stage, minimizing computational resources and allowing for further scaling.