Quantum supremacy and hardness of estimating output probabilities of quantum circuits

Ramis Movassagh

Yasuhiro Kondo, Ryuhei Mori, Ramis Movassagh

Motivated by the recent experimental demonstrations of quantum supremacy, proving the hardness of the output of random quantum circuits is an imperative near term goal. We prove under the complexity theoretical assumption of the non-collapse of the polynomial hierarchy that approximating the output probabilities of random quantum circuits to within$\exp(-\Omega(m\log m))$additive error is hard for any classical computer, where$m$is the number of gates in the quantum computation. More precisely, we show that the above problem is #P-hard under BPPNPreduction. In the recent experiments, the quantum circuit has n-qubits and the architecture is a two-dimensional grid of size$\sqrt{n}\times\sqrt{n}$[1]. Indeed for constant depth circuits approximating the output probabilities to within$2^{-\Omega(n\log n)}$is hard. For circuits of depth$\log n$or$\sqrt{n}$for which the anti-concentration property holds, approximating the output probabilities to within$2^{-\Omega(n\log^{2}n)}$and$2^{-\Omega(n^{3/2}\log n)}$is hard respectively. We then show that the hardness results extend to any open neighborhood of an arbitrary (fixed) circuit including the trivial circuit with identity gates. We made an effort to find the best proofs and proved these results from first principles, which do not use the standard techniques such as the Berlekamp–Welch algorithm, the usual Paturi's lemma, and Rakhmanov's result.

Ramis Movassagh

As Moore's law reaches its limits, quantum computers are emerging with the promise of dramatically outperforming classical computers. We have witnessed the advent of quantum processors with over $50$ quantum bits (qubits), which are expected to be beyond the reach of classical simulation. Quantum supremacy is the event at which the old Extended Church-Turing Thesis is overturned: A quantum computer performs a task that is practically impossible for any classical (super)computer. The demonstration requires both a solid theoretical guarantee and an experimental realization. The lead candidate is Random Circuit Sampling (RCS), which is the task of sampling from the output distribution of random quantum circuits. Google recently announced a $53-$qubit experimental demonstration of RCS. Soon after, classical algorithms appeared that challenge the supremacy of random circuits by estimating their outputs. How hard is it to classically simulate the output of random quantum circuits? We prove that estimating the output probabilities of random quantum circuits is formidably hard ($\#P$-Hard) for any classical computer. This makes RCS the strongest candidate for demonstrating quantum supremacy relative to all other proposals. The robustness to the estimation error that we prove may serve as a new hardness criterion for the performance of classical algorithms. To achieve this, we introduce the Cayley path interpolation between any two gates of a quantum computation and convolve recent advances in quantum complexity and information with probability and random matrices. Furthermore, we apply algebraic geometry to generalize the well-known Berlekamp-Welch algorithm that is widely used in coding theory and cryptography. Our results imply that there is an exponential hardness barrier for the classical simulation of most quantum circuits.

Hammam Qassim

Bill Fefferman

Y. Kondo, Ryuhei Mori, Ramis Movassagh

We prove under the complexity theoretical assumption of the non-collapse of the polynomial hierarchy that estimating the output probabilities of random quantum circuits to within $\exp(-\Omega(m\log m))$ additive error is hard for any classical computer, where $m$ is the number of gates in the quantum computation. More precisely, we show that the above problem is $\#\mathsf{P}$-hard under $\mathsf{BPP}^{\mathsf{NP}}$ reduction. In the recent experiments, the quantum circuit has $n-$qubits and the architecture is a two-dimensional grid of size $\sqrt{n}\times\sqrt{n}$. Indeed for constant depth circuits estimating the output probabilities to within $2^{-\Omega(n\log{n})}$ is hard, and for circuits of depth $\sqrt{n}$, for which the anti-concentration property holds, estimating the output probabilities to within $2^{-\Omega(n^{3/2}\log n)}$ is hard. We prove these results from first principles and do not use the standard techniques such as the Berlekamp--Welch algorithm, the usual Paturi's lemma, and Rakhmanov's result.