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Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Variational Quantum Linear Solver: A Hybrid Algorithm for Linear Systems

Carlos Bravo-Prieto, Ryan LaRose, Marco Cerezo, Yiğit Subaşı, Łukasz Cincio, Patrick J. Coles

Published Sep 12, 2019• 35 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Solving linear systems of equations is central to many engineering and scientific fields. Several quantum algorithms have been proposed for linear systems, where the goal is to prepare $|x\rangle$ such that $A|x\rangle \propto |b\rangle$. While these algorithms are promising, the time horizon for their implementation is long due to the required quantum circuit depth. In this work, we propose a variational hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for solving linear systems, with the aim of reducing the circuit depth and doing much of the computation classically. We propose a cost function based on the overlap between $|b\rangle$ and $A|x\rangle$, and we derive an operational meaning for this cost in terms of the solution precision $\epsilon$. We also introduce a quantum circuit to estimate this cost, while showing that this cost cannot be efficiently estimated classically. Using Rigetti's quantum computer, we successfully implement our algorithm up to a problem size of $32 \times 32$. Furthermore, we numerically find that the complexity of our algorithm scales efficiently in both $1/\epsilon$ and $\kappa$, with $\kappa$ the condition number of $A$. Our algorithm provides a heuristic for quantum linear systems that could make this application more near term.

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Communications in Theoretical Physics•Jun 19, 2024•1 citation
Solving linear systems of equations is central to many engineering and
scientific fields. Several quantum algorithms have been proposed for linear
systems, where the goal is to prepare ∣x⟩|x\rangle∣x⟩ such that A∣x⟩∝∣b⟩A|x\rangle \propto |b\rangleA∣x⟩∝∣b⟩. While these algorithms are promising, the time horizon for their
implementation is long due to the required quantum circuit depth. In this work,
we propose a variational hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for solving linear
systems, with the aim of reducing the circuit depth and doing much of the
computation classically. We propose a cost function based on the overlap
between ∣b⟩|b\rangle∣b⟩ and A∣x⟩A|x\rangleA∣x⟩, and we derive an operational meaning for
this cost in terms of the solution precision ϵ\epsilonϵ. We also introduce a
quantum circuit to estimate this cost, while showing that this cost cannot be
efficiently estimated classically. Using Rigetti's quantum computer, we
successfully implement our algorithm up to a problem size of 32×3232 \times 3232×32.
Furthermore, we numerically find that the complexity of our algorithm scales
efficiently in both 1/ϵ1/\epsilon1/ϵ and κ\kappaκ, with κ\kappaκ the condition
number of AAA. Our algorithm provides a heuristic for quantum linear systems
that could make this application more near term.
Previously proposed quantum algorithms for solving linear systems of equations cannot be implemented in the near term due to the required circuit depth. Here, we propose a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm, called Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS), for solving linear systems on near-term quantum computers. VQLS seeks to variationally prepare | x ⟩ such that A | x ⟩ ∝ | b ⟩ . We derive an operationally meaningful termination condition for VQLS that allows one to guarantee that a desired solution precision ϵ is achieved. Specifically, we prove that C ⩾ ϵ 2 / κ 2 , where C is the VQLS cost function and κ is the condition number of A . We present efficient quantum circuits to estimate C , while providing evidence for the classical hardness of its estimation. Using Rigetti's quantum computer, we successfully implement VQLS up to a problem size of 1024 × 1024 . Finally, we numerically solve non-trivial problems of size up to 2 50 × 2 50 . For the specific examples that we consider, we heuristically find that the time complexity of VQLS scales efficiently in ϵ , κ , and the system size N .
Variational Quantum Algorithms (VQAs) have emerged as promising methods for tackling complex problems on near-term quantum devices. Among these algorithms, the Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) addresses linear systems of the form Ax=bAx=bAx=b, aiming to prepare a quantum state ∣x⟩|x\rangle∣x⟩ such that A∣x⟩A|x\rangleA∣x⟩ is proportional to the quantum state corresponding to bbb. A key advantage of VQLS is its use of amplitude encoding, which requires a number of qubits that scales logarithmically with the linear system size. However, the existing literature has primarily focused on linear systems of limited size or with a specific structure. In this study, we extend the application of VQLS to more general and larger problem instances, including problems where state preparation is non-trivial and problems within the real domain of fluid dynamics. Our investigation reveals some critical challenges inherent to VQLS, including the need for a sufficiently expressive ansatz, the large number of circuit executions required to estimate the cost function, and the high gate count in the circuits in the most general setting. Our analysis highlights the obstacles that need to be addressed for a broader application of VQLS and concludes that further research is necessary to fully leverage the algorithm's capabilities in addressing real-world problems.
Finding the solution to linear systems is at the heart of many applications in science and technology. Over the years, a number of algorithms have been proposed to solve this problem on a digital quantum device, yet most of these are too demanding to be applied to the current noisy hardware. In this work, an original algorithmic procedure to solve the quantum linear system problem (QLSP) is presented, which combines ideas from variational quantum algorithms and the framework of classical shadows. The result is the shadow quantum linear solver (SQLS), a quantum algorithm solving the QLSP while avoiding the need for large controlled unitaries and requiring a number of qubits that is logarithmic in the system size. In particular, our heuristics show an exponential advantage of the SQLS in circuit execution per cost function evaluation when compared with other notorious variational approaches to solving linear systems of equations. We test the convergence of the SQLS on a number of linear systems, and the results highlight how the theoretical bounds on the number of resources used by the SQLS are conservative. Finally, we apply this algorithm to a physical problem of practical relevance by leveraging decomposition theorems from linear algebra to solve the discretized Laplace equation in a two-dimensional grid.
Different hybrid quantum-classical algorithms have recently been developed as a near-term way to solve linear systems of equations on quantum devices. However, the focus has so far been mostly on the methods, rather than the problems that they need to tackle. In fact, these algorithms have been run on real hardware only for problems in quantum physics, such as Hamiltonians of a few qubits systems. These problems are particularly favorable for quantum hardware, since their matrices are the sum of just a few unitary terms and since only shallow quantum circuits are required to estimate the cost function. However, for many interesting problems in linear algebra, it appears far less trivial to find an efficient decomposition and to trade it off with the depth of the cost quantum circuits. A first simple yet interesting instance to consider are tridiagonal systems of equations. These arise, for instance, in the discretization of one-dimensional finite element analyses. This work presents a method to solve a class of tridiagonal systems of equations with the variational quantum linear solver (VQLS), a recently proposed variational hybrid algorithm for solving linear systems. In particular, we present a new decomposition for this class of matrices based on both Pauli strings and multi--qubit gates, resulting in less terms than those obtained by just using Pauli gates. Based on this decomposition, we discuss the tradeoff between the number of terms and the near-term implementability of the quantum circuits. Furthermore, we present the first simulated and real-hardware results obtained by solving tridiagonal linear systems with VQLS, using the decomposition proposed.
Compiling quantum algorithms for near-term quantum computers (accounting for connectivity and native gate alphabets) is a major challenge that has received significant attention both by industry and academia. Avoiding the exponential overhead of classical simulation of quantum dynamics will allow compilation of larger algorithms, and a strategy for this is to evaluate an algorithm's cost on a quantum computer. To this end, we propose a variational hybrid quantum-classical algorithm called quantum-assisted quantum compiling (QAQC). In QAQC, we use the overlap between a target unitary U and a trainable unitary V as the cost function to be evaluated on the quantum computer. More precisely, to ensure that QAQC scales well with problem size, our cost involves not only the global overlap T r ( V † U ) but also the local overlaps with respect to individual qubits. We introduce novel short-depth quantum circuits to quantify the terms in our cost function, and we prove that our cost cannot be efficiently approximated with a classical algorithm under reasonable complexity assumptions. We present both gradient-free and gradient-based approaches to minimizing this cost. As a demonstration of QAQC, we compile various one-qubit gates on IBM's and Rigetti's quantum computers into their respective native gate alphabets. Furthermore, we successfully simulate QAQC up to a problem size of 9 qubits, and these simulations highlight both the scalability of our cost function as well as the noise resilience of QAQC. Future applications of QAQC include algorithm depth compression, black-box compiling, noise mitigation, and benchmarking.
Abstract Variational quantum algorithms are promising methods with the greatest potential to achieve quantum advantage, widely employed in the era of noisy intermediate-scale quantum computing. This study presents an advanced variational hybrid algorithm (EVQLSE) that leverages both quantum and classical computing paradigms to address the solution of linear equation systems. Initially, an innovative loss function is proposed, drawing inspiration from the similarity measure between two quantum states. This function exhibits a substantial improvement in computational complexity when benchmarked against the variational quantum linear solver. Subsequently, a specialized parameterized quantum circuit structure is presented for small-scale linear systems, which exhibits powerful expressive capabilities. Through rigorous numerical analysis, the expressiveness of this circuit structure is quantitatively assessed using a variational quantum regression algorithm, and it obtained the best score compared to the others. Moreover, the expansion in system size is accompanied by an increase in the number of parameters, placing considerable strain on the training process for the algorithm. To address this challenge, an optimization strategy known as quantum parameter sharing is introduced, which proficiently minimizes parameter volume while adhering to exacting precision standards. Finally, EVQLSE is successfully implemented on a quantum computing platform provided by IBM for the resolution of large-scale problems characterized by a dimensionality of 220.