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Scientific Reports

Training the parametric interactions in an analog bosonic quantum neural network with Fock basis measurement

Julien Dudas, Baptiste Carles, Élie Gouzien, Julie Grollier, Danijela Marković

Published Mar 25, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum neural networks promise to extend the power of machine learning into the quantum domain, with potential applications ranging from automatic recognition of quantum states to the control of quantum devices. However, their physical implementation and training remain challenging. In particular, the backpropagation algorithm that underpins the efficiency of classical neural networks cannot generally be applied to large quantum systems, as nonlinear quantum dynamics are not efficiently simulable. Instead, variational quantum circuits typically rely on parameter-shift rules or sampling-based gradient estimation. Here we propose a bosonic quantum neural network based on parametrically coupled Gaussian modes. Although the underlying quantum dynamics are linear, nonlinear output features are generated through Fock-basis measurements. Because Gaussian evolution can be efficiently simulated in the Heisenberg representation, the system admits gradient-based optimization by differentiating a classical model of the dynamics, while the forward evolution itself could be implemented on quantum hardware. This hybrid approach enables end-to-end training of physically meaningful parameters without requiring gradient extraction from the experimental device. Such architectures are naturally compatible with circuit quantum electrodynamics platforms featuring tunable parametric couplers, as well as integrated photonic systems with engineered χ(2) or χ(3) nonlinearities. Our results demonstrate that linear bosonic networks combined with nonlinear measurement provide a scalable and trainable route toward experimentally realizable quantum neural networks.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-026-45038-7

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Quantum neural networks promise to extend the power of machine learning into the quantum domain, with potential applications ranging from automatic recognition of quantum states to the control of quantum devices. However, their physical implementation and training remain challenging. In particular, the backpropagation algorithm that underpins the efficiency of classical neural networks cannot generally be applied to large quantum systems, as nonlinear quantum dynamics are not efficiently simulable. Instead, variational quantum circuits typically rely on parameter-shift rules or sampling-based gradient estimation. Here we propose a bosonic quantum neural network based on parametrically coupled Gaussian modes. Although the underlying quantum dynamics are linear, nonlinear output features are generated through Fock-basis measurements. Because Gaussian evolution can be efficiently simulated in the Heisenberg representation, the system admits gradient-based optimization by differentiating a classical model of the dynamics, while the forward evolution itself could be implemented on quantum hardware. This hybrid approach enables end-to-end training of physically meaningful parameters without requiring gradient extraction from the experimental device. Such architectures are naturally compatible with circuit quantum electrodynamics platforms featuring tunable parametric couplers, as well as integrated photonic systems with engineered χ(2) or χ(3) nonlinearities. Our results demonstrate that linear bosonic networks combined with nonlinear measurement provide a scalable and trainable route toward experimentally realizable quantum neural networks.
Quantum neural networks promise to extend the power of machine learning into the quantum domain, with potential applications ranging from automatic recognition of quantum states to the control of quantum devices. However, their physical implementation and training remain challenging. In particular, the backpropagation algorithm that underpins the efficiency of classical neural networks cannot generally be applied to large quantum systems, as nonlinear quantum dynamics are not efficiently simulable. Instead, variational quantum circuits typically rely on parameter-shift rules or sampling-based gradient estimation. Here we propose a bosonic quantum neural network based on parametrically coupled Gaussian modes. Although the underlying quantum dynamics are linear, nonlinear output features are generated through Fock-basis measurements. Because Gaussian evolution can be efficiently simulated in the Heisenberg representation, the system admits gradient-based optimization by differentiating a classical model of the dynamics, while the forward evolution itself could be implemented on quantum hardware. This hybrid approach enables end-to-end training of physically meaningful parameters without requiring gradient extraction from the experimental device. Such architectures are naturally compatible with circuit quantum electrodynamics platforms featuring tunable parametric couplers, as well as integrated photonic systems with engineered χχχ(2) or χχχ(3) nonlinearities. Our results demonstrate that linear bosonic networks combined with nonlinear measurement provide a scalable and trainable route toward experimentally realizable quantum neural networks.
Quantum reservoir computing is a machine-learning framework that offers ease of training compared to other quantum neural networks, as it does not rely on gradient-based optimization. Learning is performed in a single step on the output features measured from the quantum system. Various implementations of quantum reservoir computing have been explored in simulations, with different measured features. Although simulations have shown that quantum reservoirs present advantages in performance compared to classical reservoirs, experimental implementations have remained scarce. This is due to the challenge of obtaining a large number of output features that are nonlinear transformations of the input data. In this work, we show that even with a circuit quantum electrodynamics system as simple as a single transmon coupled to a readout resonator, we can implement a proof-of-concept realization of quantum reservoir computing. We obtain a large number of nonlinear features from a single physical system by encoding the input data in the amplitude of a coherent drive and measuring the cavity state in the Fock basis. We demonstrate classification of two classical tasks with significantly smaller hardware resources and fewer measured features compared to classical neural networks. Our experimental results are supported by numerical simulations that show additional Kerr nonlinearity is beneficial to reservoir performance. Our work demonstrates a hardware-efficient quantum neural-network implementation that can be further scaled up and generalized to other quantum machine-learning models.
The rapid advancements in quantum computing (QC) and machine learning (ML) have led to the emergence of quantum machine learning (QML), which integrates the strengths of both fields. Among QML approaches, variational quantum circuits (VQCs), also known as quantum neural networks (QNNs), have shown promise both empirically and theoretically. However, their broader adoption is hindered by reliance on quantum hardware during inference. Hardware imperfections and limited access to quantum devices pose practical challenges. To address this, the Quantum-Train (QT) framework leverages the exponential scaling of quantum amplitudes to generate classical neural network parameters, enabling inference without quantum hardware and achieving significant parameter compression. Yet, designing effective quantum circuit architectures for such quantum-enhanced neural programmers remains non-trivial and often requires expertise in quantum information science. In this paper, we propose an automated solution using differentiable optimization. Our method jointly optimizes both conventional circuit parameters and architectural parameters in an end-to-end manner via automatic differentiation. We evaluate the proposed framework on classification, time-series prediction, and reinforcement learning tasks. Simulation results show that our method matches or outperforms manually designed QNN architectures. This work offers a scalable and automated pathway for designing QNNs that can generate classical neural network parameters across diverse applications.
Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs) represent a compelling convergence of quantum mechanics and machine learning, yet their practical deployment remains constrained by noise, limited qubit counts, and the cost of full quantum execution. Hybrid quantum-classical (HQC) training offers a pragmatic path forward: parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs) process information in exponentially large Hilbert spaces while classical optimizers update parameters via gradient methods accessible on today's hardware. We present a modular HQC training framework, formalising the parameter-shift rule for hardware-compatible gradient estimation, characterising the barren-plateau phenomenon through a variance-decay analysis, and introducing noise-aware training strategies for NISQ devices. Empirical results from state-vector and shot-based simulation confirm measurable quantum advantage on quantum-structured tasks, with the phase classification benchmark improving +12.1% over a classical MLP baseline. The accompanying open-source library provides a clean abstraction between quantum simulation and classical optimisation, serving as a foundation for near-term quantum machine learning research.
Quantum neural networks generalize classical artificial neural networks into the quantum domain. They are formulated as parameterized quantum circuits which are optimized by measuring and minimizing a suitably chosen loss function. The core challenge in understanding, implementing and ultimately using quantum neural networks is that they represent many-body systems with an exponentially large Hilbert space, in combination with a large parameter search space. Moreover, noise -- which is inherent to any quantum measurement -- sets practical limits for the estimation of training loss. Here, we study physics-informed large-scale quantum neural networks that are trained through a finite number of noisy loss function measurements. We show that this architecture permits the construction of nontrivial decision boundaries that enable the classification of quantum states through measuring an order parameter. Our approach can directly process quantum data that is output from quantum simulators and computers and is well suited for implementation on current hardware. Moreover, owed to a close link between the neural network dynamics and the evolution of Markovian open many-body quantum systems, one may expect a certain robustness to noise, which is ubiquitous in the current NISQ era.
We introduce the Backwards Quantum Propagation of Phase errors (Baqprop) principle, a central theme upon which we construct multiple universal optimization heuristics for training both parametrized quantum circuits and classical deep neural networks on a quantum computer. Baqprop encodes error information in relative phases of a quantum wavefunction defined over the space of network parameters; it can be thought of as the unification of the phase kickback principle of quantum computation and of the backpropagation algorithm from classical deep learning. We propose two core heuristics which leverage Baqprop for quantum-enhanced optimization of network parameters: Quantum Dynamical Descent (QDD) and Momentum Measurement Gradient Descent (MoMGrad). QDD uses simulated quantum coherent dynamics for parameter optimization, allowing for quantum tunneling through the hypothesis space landscape. MoMGrad leverages Baqprop to estimate gradients and thereby perform gradient descent on the parameter landscape; it can be thought of as the quantum-classical analogue of QDD. In addition to these core optimization strategies, we propose various methods for parallelization, regularization, and meta-learning as augmentations to MoMGrad and QDD. We introduce several quantum-coherent adaptations of canonical classical feedforward neural networks, and study how Baqprop can be used to optimize such networks. We develop multiple applications of parametric circuit learning for quantum data, and show how to perform Baqprop in each case. One such application allows for the training of hybrid quantum-classical neural-circuit networks, via the seamless integration of Baqprop with classical backpropagation. Finally, for a representative subset of these proposed applications, we demonstrate the training of these networks via numerical simulations of implementations of QDD and MoMGrad.