Variational quantum algorithms are a promising hybrid framework for solving chemistry and physics problems with broad applicability to optimization as well. They are particularly well suited for noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers. In this paper we describe the unitary block optimization scheme (UBOS) and apply it to two variational quantum algorithms: the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) and variational time evolution. The goal of VQE is to optimize a classically intractable parameterized quantum wave function to target a physical state of a Hamiltonian or solve an optimization problem. UBOS is an alternative to other VQE optimization schemes with a number of advantages, including fast convergence, less sensitivity to barren plateaus, the ability to tunnel through some local minima, and no hyperparameters to tune. We additionally describe how UBOS applies to real and imaginary time-evolution (TUBOS).
Variational quantum algorithms are a promising hybrid framework for solving chemistry and physics problems with broad applicability to optimization as well. They are particularly well suited for noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers. In this paper we describe the unitary block optimization scheme (UBOS) and apply it to two variational quantum algorithms: the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) and variational time evolution. The goal of VQE is to optimize a classically intractable parameterized quantum wave function to target a physical state of a Hamiltonian or solve an optimization problem. UBOS is an alternative to other VQE optimization schemes with a number of advantages, including fast convergence, less sensitivity to barren plateaus, the ability to tunnel through some local minima, and no hyperparameters to tune. We additionally describe how UBOS applies to real and imaginary time-evolution (TUBOS).
Variational Quantum Algorithms are a major method of harnessing Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum devices to solve classically intractable problems in physics, chemistry, optimization, and machine learning. The current review offers a critical overview of VQAs, with special emphasis on their theoretical backgrounds, algorithmic structures, and application performance within realistic models of noise. Several key variants, such as the Variational Quantum Eigensolver, Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm, and Quantum Neural Networks, are compared in terms of noise robustness, ansatz archi- tecture, and hybrid quantum-classical methods of optimization. Benchmarks in fields such as quantum chemistry, finance modeling, and particles and nuclei physics reveal the poten- tial of VQAs in achieving practical quantum advantage. Fundamentally limiting factors 1such as barren plateaus, optimization overhead, and hardware constraints are considered in addition to mitigation strategies, including adaptive construction of ansatz, informed training in the presence of noise, and quantum error correction using QVECTOR. The paper is concluded with an overview of the scalability and future of VQAs in the direction of transitioning toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Variational Quantum Eigensolvers (VQE) are a promising approach for finding the classically intractable ground state of a Hamiltonian. The Unitary Block Optimization Scheme (UBOS) is a state-of-the-art VQE method which works by sweeping over gates and finding optimal parameters for each gate in the environment of other gates. UBOS improves the convergence time to the ground state by an order of magnitude over Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD). It nonetheless suffers in both rate of convergence and final converged energies in the face of highly noisy expectation values coming from shot noise. Here we develop two classical post-processing techniques which improve UBOS especially when measurements have large noise. Using Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), we generate artificial augmented data using original data from the quantum computer to reduce the overall error when solving for the improved parameters. Using Double Robust Optimization plus Rejection (DROPR), we prevent outlying data which are atypically noisy from resulting in a particularly erroneous single optimization step thereby increasing robustness against noisy measurements. Combining these techniques further reduces the final relative error that UBOS reaches by a factor of three without adding additional quantum measurement or sampling overhead. This work further demonstrates that developing techniques which use classical resources to post-process quantum measurement results can significantly improve VQE algorithms.
Variational quantum eigensolvers (VQEs) are a promising approach for finding the classically intractable ground state of a Hamiltonian. The unitary block-optimization scheme (UBOS) is a state-of-the-art VQE method that works by sweeping over gates and finding optimal parameters for each gate in the environment of other gates. UBOS improves the convergence time to the ground state by an order of magnitude over stochastic gradient descent. It nonetheless suffers in both rate of convergence and final converged energies in the face of highly noisy expectation values coming from shot noise. Here we develop two classical postprocessing techniques that improve UBOS especially when measurements have large shot noise. Using Gaussian process regression, we generate artificial augmented data using original data from the quantum computer to reduce the overall error when solving for the improved parameters. Using double robust optimization plus rejection, we prevent outlying data which are atypically noisy from resulting in a particularly erroneous single optimization step, thereby increasing robustness against noisy measurements. Combining these techniques further reduces the final relative error that UBOS reaches by a factor of 3 without adding additional quantum measurement or sampling overhead. This work further demonstrates that developing techniques that use classical resources to postprocess quantum measurement results can significantly improve VQE algorithms.
The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a hybrid quantum classical algorithm designed for current and near-term quantum devices. Despite its initial success, there is a lack of understanding involving several of its key aspects. There are problems with VQE that forbid a favorable scaling towards quantum advantage. In order to alleviate the problems, we propose and extensively test a quantum annealing inspired heuristic that supplements VQE. The improved VQE enables an efficient initial state-preparation mechanism, in a recursive manner, for a quasidynamical unitary evolution. We conduct an in-depth scaling analysis of finding the ground-state energies with increasing lattice sizes of the Heisenberg model, employing simulations of up to 40 qubits that manipulate the complete state vector. In addition to systematically finding the ground-state energy, we observe that it avoids barren plateaus, escapes local minima, and works with low-depth circuits. For the current devices, we further propose a benchmarking toolkit using a mean-field model and test it on IBM Q devices. Realistic gate execution times estimate a longer computational time to complete the same computation on a fully functional error-free quantum computer than on a quantum computer emulator implemented on a classical computer. However, our proposal can be expected to help accurate estimations of the ground-state energies beyond 50 qubits when the complete state vector can no longer be stored on a classical computer, thus enabling quantum advantage.
The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) typically optimizes variational parameters in a quantum circuit to prepare eigenstates for a quantum system. Its application to many problems may involve a group of Hamiltonians, e.g., a Hamiltonian of a molecule is a function of the nuclear configurations. In this paper we incorporate derivatives of the Hamiltonian into the VQE and develop some hybrid quantum-classical algorithms, which explore both Hamiltonian and wave-function spaces for solving quantum chemistry problems more efficiently. For geometry optimization, we propose a mutual gradient-descent algorithm that updates the parameters of the Hamiltonian and wave function alternately, which can give a rapid convergence towards equilibrium structures of molecules as demonstrated in numerical simulations. Moreover, to speed up the calculation of the energy potential surface, we establish differential equations that govern how the optimized variational parameters of the wave function change with the intrinsic parameters of the Hamiltonian. Our study suggests a direction for a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for solving quantum systems more efficiently by considering spaces of both the Hamiltonian and the wave function.
Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are a modern family of quantum algorithms designed to solve optimization problems using a quantum computer. Typically VQAs rely on a feedback loop between the quantum device and a classical optimization algorithm. The appeal of VQAs lies in their versatility, resistance to noise, and ability to demonstrate some results even with circuits of small depth. We primarily focus on the algorithm called variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), which takes a qubit Hamiltonian and returns its approximate ground state. We first present our numerical findings regarding VQE applied to two spin models and a variant of the Hubbard model. Next, we briefly touch the topic of quantum machine learning by developing a quantum classifier to partition quantum data. We further study the phenomenon of vanishing derivatives in VQAs, also known as barren plateaus phenomenon. We derive a new lower bound on variance of the derivatives, which depends on the causal structure of the ansatz circuit and the individual terms entering the Pauli decomposition of the problem Hamiltonian. In the final chapter of the thesis, we present our results on bounding the fidelity of experimentally prepared Clifford states using their parent Hamiltonians.