A single two-level system (TLS) evolving in time can act as a quantum neural computer. The system is prepared in some initial state (input(s)), and measured in some final state (output(s)). The states of the system at intermediate times are the (virtual) neurons, connected to each other by the time evolution operator and the influence functionals of the environment. The environmental variables coupling the system to itself at different times are trained using a standard gradient descent neural network algorithm. We demonstrate this by simulating first a quantum dot molecule on a solid state substrate, in which we tickle the substrate phonons, and second a variable /spl beta/ rf SQuID coupled to a microwave cavity field. Each can be trained to perform any desired logic gate, starting from a single initial physical state, and is thus a universal quantum computer.
A single two-level system (TLS) evolving in time can act as a quantum neural computer. The system is prepared in some initial state (input(s)), and measured in some final state (output(s)). The states of the system at intermediate times are the (virtual) neurons, connected to each other by the time evolution operator and the influence functionals of the environment. The environmental variables coupling the system to itself at different times are trained using a standard gradient descent neural network algorithm. We demonstrate this by simulating first a quantum dot molecule on a solid state substrate, in which we tickle the substrate phonons, and second a variable /spl beta/ rf SQuID coupled to a microwave cavity field. Each can be trained to perform any desired logic gate, starting from a single initial physical state, and is thus a universal quantum computer.
We take another step towards the construction of a bench model of quantum neural network hardware: the simulation of a spatial array of quantum dot molecules, acting as a neural network. Like our previous temporal model (1998), this net has none of the "wiring problems" of hardware for traditional neural nets: the necessary connections are supplied by the physical system itself. Computation is performed by the intrinsic physics of the system. The long range character of the phononic interactions takes the net beyond traditional nearest neighbor connectionist systems. Moreover, unlike our temporal model, there would seem to be few inherent problems to the hardware implementation of this architecture.
Conventional approaches to simulating quantum many-body dynamics produce a single trajectory: if the Hamiltonian or the initial state is changed, the computation must be re-performed. Recent efforts toward foundation models have begun to address this limitation, yet existing methods transfer across either Hamiltonians or initial states, but not both. In this work, we introduce the Universal Neural Propagator (UNP), a single, unified model that learns the functional mapping from driving protocols to time-evolution propagators. Trained in an entirely self-supervised way, a single UNP model predicts dynamics across a function space of driving protocols and an exponentially large Hilbert space of initial states simultaneously. We benchmark on a two-dimensional driven Ising model and demonstrate the UNP's accuracy and transferability across product and entangled initial states, as well as for both in- and out-of-distribution driving protocols. The UNP remains accurate at system sizes beyond exact diagonalization, and can be efficiently fine-tuned across all initial states using observable data. By shifting the object of learning from quantum states to operators, this work opens a route toward transferable simulation of driven quantum matter.
In previous work, we have developed a dynamic learning paradigm for “programming” a general quantum computer. A learning algorithm is used to find a set of parameters for a coupled qubit system such that the system at an initial time evolves at the final time to a state in which a given measurement results in the desired calculation value. This can be thought of as a quantum neural network (QNN). Here, we apply our method to a system of three qubits, and demonstrate training the quantum computer to estimate both pairwise and three-way entanglement of the initial state.
Capturing the dynamics of quantum many-body systems under time-dependent driving protocols is a central challenge for numerical simulations. Existing methods such as tensor networks and time-dependent neural quantum states, however, must be re-run for every protocol. In this work, we introduce the Neural Operator Quantum State (NOQS) as a foundation model for quantum dynamics. Rather than solving the Schrödinger equation for individual trajectories, our approach aims to \emph{learn the solution operator} that maps entire driving protocols to time-evolved quantum states. Once trained, the NOQS predicts time evolution under unseen protocols in a single forward pass, requiring no additional optimization. We validate NOQS on the two-dimensional Ising model with time-dependent longitudinal and transverse fields, demonstrating accurate prediction not only for unseen in-distribution protocols, but also for qualitatively different, out-of-distribution functional forms of driving. Further, a single NOQS model can be transferred between different temporal resolutions, and can be efficiently fine-tuned with sparse experimental measurements to improve predictions across all observables at negligible cost. Our work introduces a new paradigm for quantum dynamics simulation and provides a practical computational-experimental interface for driven quantum systems.
We introduce the architecture and timing algorithm to realize a time-bin-encoded quantum photonic neural network (QPNN): a reconfigurable nonlinear photonic circuit inspired by the brain and trained to process quantum information. Unlike the typical spatially-encoded QPNN, time-encoded networks require the same number of photonic elements (e.g. phase shifters or switches) regardless of their size or depth. Here, we present a model of such a network and show how to include imperfections such as losses, routing errors and most notably distinguishable photons. As an example, we train the QPNN to realize a controlled-NOT gate, based on a hypothetical ideal Kerr nonlinearity. We then extend our model to a realistic two-photon nonlinearity due to scattering from a single, semiconductor quantum dot coupled to a photonic waveguide. We show that, using this realistic nonlinearity, the QPNN can be trained to act as a Bell-state analyzer which operates with a fidelity of 0.96 and at a rate only limited by losses. We further show that time gating can raise this fidelity to over 0.99, while still maintaining an efficiency exceeding 0.9. Overall, this work lays a framework for the first QPNN encoded in time, and provides a clear path to the scaling of these networks.
Quantum computing is one of the most exciting research areas of the last decades. At the same time, methods of machine learning have started to dominate science, industry and our everyday life. In this thesis we combine these two essential research topics of the 21st century and introduce dissipative quantum neural networks (DQNNs), which are designed for fully quantum learning tasks, are capable of universal quantum computation and have low memory requirements while training. We start the discussion of this interdisciplinary topic by introducing artificial neural networks, which are a very common tool in classical machine learning. Next, we give an overview on quantum information. Here we focus on quantum algorithms and circuits, which are used to implement quantum neural networks. Moreover, we explain the opportunities and challenges arising with today's quantum computers. The discussion of the architecture and training algorithm of the DQNNs forms the core of this work. These networks are optimised with training data pairs in form of input and desired output states and therefore can be used for characterising unknown or untrusted quantum devices. We not only demonstrate the generalisation behaviour of these quantum neural networks using classical simulations, but also implement them successfully on actual quantum computers. To understand the ultimate limits for such quantum machine learning methods, we discuss the quantum no free lunch theorem, which describes a bound on the probability that a quantum device, which can be modelled as a unitary process and is optimised with quantum examples, gives an incorrect output for a random input. This gives us a tool to review the learning behaviour of quantum neural networks in general and the DQNNs in particular. Moreover we expand the area of applications of DQNNs in two directions. In the first case, we include additional information beyond just the training data pairs: since quantum devices are always structured, the resulting data is always structured as well. We modify the DQNN's training algorithm such that knowledge about the graph-structure of the training data pairs is included in the training process and show that this can lead to better generalisation behaviour. Both the original DQNN and the DQNN including graph structure are trained with data pairs in order to characterise an underlying relation. However, in the second extension of the algorithm we aim to learn characteristics of a set of quantum states in order to extend it to quantum states which have similar properties. Therefore we build a generative adversarial model where two DQNNs, called the generator and discriminator, are trained in a competitive way. Overall, we observe that DQNNs can not only be trained efficiently but also, similar to their classical counterparts, modified to suit different applications.