The Quantum Amplitude Estimation (QAE) algorithm is a major quantum algorithm designed to achieve a quadratic speed-up. Until fault-tolerant quantum computing is achieved, being competitive over classical Monte Carlo (MC) remains elusive. Alternative methods have been developed so as to require fewer resources while maintaining an advantageous theoretical scaling. We compared the standard QAE algorithm with two Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ)-friendly versions of QAE on a numerical integration task, with the Monte Carlo technique of Metropolis–Hastings as a classical benchmark. The algorithms were evaluated in terms of the estimation error as a function of the number of samples, computational time, and length of the quantum circuits required by the solutions, respectively. The effectiveness of the two QAE alternatives was tested on an 11-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer in order to verify which solution can first provide a speed-up in the integral estimation problems. We concluded that an alternative approach is preferable with respect to employing the phase estimation routine. Indeed, the Maximum Likelihood estimation guaranteed the best trade-off between the length of the quantum circuits and the precision in the integral estimation, as well as greater resistance to noise.
The Quantum Amplitude Estimation (QAE) algorithm is a major quantum algorithm designed to achieve a quadratic speed-up. Until fault-tolerant quantum computing is achieved, being competitive over classical Monte Carlo (MC) remains elusive. Alternative methods have been developed so as to require fewer resources while maintaining an advantageous theoretical scaling. We compared the standard QAE algorithm with two Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ)-friendly versions of QAE on a numerical integration task, with the Monte Carlo technique of Metropolis–Hastings as a classical benchmark. The algorithms were evaluated in terms of the estimation error as a function of the number of samples, computational time, and length of the quantum circuits required by the solutions, respectively. The effectiveness of the two QAE alternatives was tested on an 11-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer in order to verify which solution can first provide a speed-up in the integral estimation problems. We concluded that an alternative approach is preferable with respect to employing the phase estimation routine. Indeed, the Maximum Likelihood estimation guaranteed the best trade-off between the length of the quantum circuits and the precision in the integral estimation, as well as greater resistance to noise.
The approximation of an integral with numerical integration methods is a relevant problem in many fields, from finance to chemistry. Monte Carlo methods are a family of methods widely used for numerical integration but which are not always applicable to industrial tasks. Instead, there are quantum computing methods such as Quantum Amplitude Estimation able to offer a speed-up compared to the Monte Carlo methods for numerical integration which promise a significant impact, especially in finance. The Quantum Amplitude Estimation algorithm is a fundamental quantum algorithm with the potential to achieve a quadratic speed-up. Unfortunately, being competitive over classical Monte Carlo methods would require hardware performances currently not available. Therefore, alternative methods have been developed in order to exploit fewer resources while maintaining an advantageous theoretical scaling. We present a comparison between the standard QAE algorithm and two NISQ-friendly versions of the QAE on a numerical integration task. The Monte Carlo technique of Metropolis-Hastings instead is used as a classical benchmark. The scaling of the different algorithms are evaluated in terms of estimation error as a function of the number of samples, computational time, and length of the quantum circuits required by the quantum solutions. The conclusion highlights that an alternative approach is preferable with respect to employng the phase estimation routine. Indeed, the maximum likelihood estimation guarantees the best trade-off between the length of the quantum circuits and the precision in the integral estimation.
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.
Quantum Amplitude Estimation (QAE) is a key primitive in quantum computing, but its standard implementation using Quantum Phase Estimation is resource-intensive, requiring a large number of coherent qubits in a single circuit block to achieve high precision. This presents a significant challenge for near-term Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. To address this, we introduce the Adaptive Windowed Quantum Amplitude Estimation (AWQAE) framework, a modular, scalable and adaptive approach that decouples estimation precision from the number of physical qubits required in a single circuit. AWQAE operates by iteratively estimating the phase bits in small, fixed-size chunks, using a number of smaller, independent quantum circuits, which are amenable to parallel processing. A key technical contribution of this work is introduction of a phase resolution circuit and an ancilla-guided mechanism that enables accurate chunk assignment and eigenphase reconstruction in the presence of multiple eigenstates. This design is inherently NISQ-friendly, by lowering circuit depth and qubit count per block to reduce decoherence and noise effects. A key component of our approach is a robust classical post-processing algorithm that resolves measurement ambiguities that arise during the iterative process. This post-processing routine uses a least-significant-bit (LSB)-to-most-significant-bit (MSB) correction to reconstruct the full, high-precision phase estimate, ensuring accuracy. By combining a modular quantum-classical loop with an ambiguity-aware reconstruction method, AWQAE offers a powerful and flexible solution for performing high-precision QAE on resource-constrained quantum hardware. Our approach demonstrates enhanced scalability, and adaptability, making it a promising candidate for practical applications of QAE in the NISQ era.
We introduce a variant of Quantum Amplitude Estimation (QAE), called Iterative QAE (IQAE), which does not rely on Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) but is only based on Grover’s Algorithm, which reduces the required number of qubits and gates. We provide a rigorous analysis of IQAE and prove that it achieves a quadratic speedup up to a double-logarithmic factor compared to classical Monte Carlo simulation with provably small constant overhead. Furthermore, we show with an empirical study that our algorithm outperforms other known QAE variants without QPE, some even by orders of magnitude, i.e., our algorithm requires significantly fewer samples to achieve the same estimation accuracy and confidence level.
This paper addresses the practical aspects of quantum algorithms used in numerical integration, specifically their implementation on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. Quantum algorithms for numerical integration utilize Quantum Amplitude Estimation (QAE) (Brassard et al., 2002) in conjunction with Grover’s algorithm. However, QAE is daunting to implement on NISQ devices since it typically relies on Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE), which requires many ancilla qubits and controlled operations. To mitigate these challenges, a recently published QAE algorithm (Suzuki et al., 2020), which does not rely on QPE, requires a much smaller number of controlled operations and does not require ancilla qubits. We implement this new algorithm for numerical integration on IBM quantum devices using Qiskit and optimize the circuit on each target device. We discuss the application of this algorithm on two qubits and its scalability to more than two qubits on NISQ devices.
We demonstrate quantum amplitude estimation (QAE) as a route to quadratic speedup for Monte Carlo-type expectation values in nuclear engineering. Using QPE-based QAE, we study two examples: a discrete fission-neutron-yield expectation and a U-238 resonance integral under a 1/E slowing-down spectrum. The toy problem is implemented as a gate-level Qiskit circuit, while the resonance-integral example is simulated through an exact eigendecomposition of the Grover operator to avoid state-preparation decomposition bottlenecks. In both cases, the squared error scales as O(1/T2) with the number of oracle calls T, compared with the classical Monte Carlo scaling O(1/N). For the U-238 example, QAE recovers the resonance integral to approximately 0.03 relative error with m=14 phase-estimation qubits.