Quantum purity amplification (QPA) provides a novel approach to counteracting the pervasive noise that degrades quantum states. We present the optimal QPA protocol for general quantum systems and global noise, resolving a two-decade open problem. Under strong depolarization, our protocol achieves an exponential reduction in sample complexity over the best-known methods. We provide an efficient implementation of the protocol based on generalized quantum phase estimation. Additionally, we introduce SWAPNET, a sparse and shallow circuit that enables QPA for near-term experiments. Simulations in both digital and analog quantum settings, along with experiments on superconducting quantum processors, confirm the protocol's robustness and practical utility. Our findings suggest that QPA could improve the performance of quantum information processing tasks, particularly in the context of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, where reducing the effect of noise with limited resources is critical.
Quantum purity amplification (QPA) provides a novel approach to counteracting the pervasive noise that degrades quantum states. We present the optimal QPA protocol for general quantum systems and global noise, resolving a two-decade open problem. Under strong depolarization, our protocol achieves an exponential reduction in sample complexity over the best-known methods. We provide an efficient implementation of the protocol based on generalized quantum phase estimation. Additionally, we introduce SWAPNET, a sparse and shallow circuit that enables QPA for near-term experiments. Simulations in both digital and analog quantum settings, along with experiments on superconducting quantum processors, confirm the protocol's robustness and practical utility. Our findings suggest that QPA could improve the performance of quantum information processing tasks, particularly in the context of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices, where reducing the effect of noise with limited resources is critical.
Quantum purity amplification (QPA) is the task of coherently transforming n copies of a mixed state into high-fidelity copies of a chosen eigenstate. We develop a general theory of QPA for n input copies, m output copies, and arbitrary choices of target eigenstate, local dimension d, and input spectrum. We introduce the overhang-removal protocol, derive its all-site and one-site fidelities across output regimes, and show that it is optimal in several regimes, both asymptotically and nonasymptotically. For the asymptotic analysis, we use a path-graph parametrization to show that, when the target eigenvalue has a constant spectral gap Dk,min, achieving worst-case all-site error ε scales as O(m/(εDk,min2)). When m/n approaches a constant, the performance exhibits phase-like regimes, which we characterize explicitly. For the nonasymptotic analysis, we develop a theory of generalized Young diagrams that yields tight sample complexity bounds and provides the first tight dimension-uniform guarantee for optimal QPA. We also provide asymptotically efficient implementations of the overhang-removal protocol. Together, these results establish QPA as a rigorous example of coherent quantum information processing with dimension-uniform sample complexity, supplying the technical foundation for the coherent-incoherent separation developed in the companion work.
Standard quantum inference converts quantum data into classical outputs. We study an alternative inference setting in which the desired output is quantum. Such settings include quantum purity amplification (QPA), random purification and approximate cloning, and density matrix exponentiation. We show that such protocols can achieve exponentially lower sample complexity than incoherent, measurement-mediated protocols, establishing, to the best of our knowledge, the first nontrivial separations between dimension-independent coherent and dimension-dependent incoherent sample complexity. For QPA with principal-eigenstate targets and d-dimensional inputs, at fixed output number and spectral gap, coherent processing achieves error ε using O(1/ε) copies, whereas any incoherent protocol requires Ω(d/ε) copies. Together, these separations motivate a unified picture of coherent quantum inference, in which an entanglement-breaking limit identifies the optimal incoherent counterpart.
As quantum processors move into the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, the central question is no longer whether a quantum algorithm is asymptotically faster than its classical counterpart, but whether it can retain a meaningful speedup under realistic noise, compilation, and measurement constraints. This work develops a quantitative framework for characterizing the noise resilience of quantum advantage. We introduce the advantage robustness function RA(ε), which measures how the asymptotic and concrete performance of an algorithm A degrades with physical error rate ε, and we compute it analytically or numerically for twelve representative algorithm families, including Grover search, amplitude estimation, phase estimation, HHL, VQE/QAOA, Hamiltonian simulation, and sampling algorithms. For each class, we derive critical noise thresholds and depth limits beyond which classical algorithms regain supremacy, explicitly incorporating realistic connectivity and compilation overheads. We show that algorithms based on coherent amplitude amplification are more fragile to coherent errors than depolarizing noise, while variational algorithms display a tradeoff between expressivity and robustness. By combining these algorithm-specific robustness curves with current and projected hardware error rates for superconducting, trapped-ion, neutralatom, and photonic platforms, we map out a phase diagram of practical quantum advantage that links problem size, noise rate, and algorithm type. Our analysis identifies promising near-term application windows in risk analytics, small-molecule chemistry, and structured optimization, and also delineates regions where no advantage is realistic, providing valuable guidance for both algorithm designers and hardware architects.
Using near-term quantum computers to achieve a quantum advantage requires efficient strategies to improve the performance of the noisy quantum devices presently available. We develop and experimentally validate two efficient error mitigation protocols named ``Noiseless Output Extrapolation" and ``Pauli Error Cancellation" that can drastically enhance the performance of quantum circuits composed of noisy cycles of gates. By combining popular mitigation strategies such as probabilistic error cancellation and noise amplification with efficient noise reconstruction methods, our protocols can mitigate a wide range of noise processes that do not satisfy the assumptions underlying existing mitigation protocols, including non-local and gate-dependent processes. We test our protocols on a four-qubit superconducting processor at the Advanced Quantum Testbed. We observe significant improvements in the performance of both structured and random circuits, with up to 86% improvement in variation distance over the unmitigated outputs. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our protocols, as well as their practicality for current hardware platforms.
A wealth of quantum algorithms developed during the past decades brought about the concept of quantum supremacy. The state-of-the-art noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices, although imperfect, enable certain computational tasks that are demonstrably beyond the capabilities of modern classical supercomputers. However, present quantum computations are restricted to probing the quantum processor power, whereas implementation of specific full-scale quantum algorithms remains a challenge. Here we realize hybrid quantum algorithm for solving a linear system of equations with exponential speedup that utilizes quantum phase estimation, one of the exemplary core protocols for quantum computing. Our experiment carried out on superconducting IBMQ devices reveals the main shortcomings of the present quantum processors, which must be surpassed in order to boost quantum data processing via phase estimation. The developed algorithm demonstrates quantum supremacy and holds high promise to meet practically relevant challenges.
Quantum Amplitude Estimation (QAE) -- a technique by which the amplitude of a given quantum state can be estimated with quadratically fewer queries than by standard sampling -- is a key sub-routine in several important quantum algorithms, including Grover search and Quantum Monte-Carlo methods. An obstacle to implementing QAE in near-term noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices has been the need to perform Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) -- a costly procedure -- as a sub-routine. This impediment was lifted with various QPE-free methods of QAE, wherein Grover queries of varying depths / powers (often according to a "schedule") are followed immediately by measurements and classical post-processing techniques like maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). Existing analyses as to the optimality of various query schedules in these QPE-free QAE schemes have hitherto assumed noise-free systems. In this work, we analyse QPE-free QAE under common noise models that may afflict NISQ devices and report on the optimality of various query schedules in the noisy regime. We demonstrate that, given an accurate noise characterization of one's system, one must choose a schedule that balances the trade-off between the greater ideal performance achieved by higher-depth circuits, and the correspondingly greater accumulation of noise-induced error.