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High-coherence cavity resonators are excellent resources for encoding quantum information in higher-dimensional Hilbert spaces, moving beyond traditional qubit-based platforms. A natural strategy is to use the Fock basis to encode information in qudits. One can perform quantum operations on the cavity mode qudit by coupling the system to a non-linear ancillary transmon qubit. However, the performance of the cavity-transmon device is limited by the noisy transmons. It is, therefore, important to develop practical benchmarking tools for these qudit systems in an algorithm-agnostic manner. We gauge the performance of these qudit platforms using sampling tests such as the Heavy Output Generation (HOG) test as well as the linear Cross-Entropy Benchmark (XEB), by way of simulations of such a system subject to realistic dominant noise channels. We use selective number-dependent arbitrary phase and unconditional displacement gates as our universal gateset. Our results show that contemporary transmons comfortably enable controlling a few tens of Fock levels of a cavity mode. This framework allows benchmarking even higher dimensional qudits as those become accessible with improved transmons., Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures

Quantum Fourier transformations are an essential component of many quantum algorithms, from prime factoring to quantum simulation. While the standard abelian QFT is well-studied, important variants corresponding to \emph{nonabelian} groups of interest have seen less development. In particular, fast nonabelian Fourier transformations are important components for both quantum simulations of field theories as well as approaches to the nonabelian hidden subgroup problem. In this work, we present fast quantum Fourier transformations for a number of nonabelian groups of interest for high energy physics, $\mathbb{BT}$, $\mathbb{BO}$, $\Delta(27)$, $\Delta(54)$, and $\Sigma(36\times3)$. For each group, we derive explicit quantum circuits and estimate resource scaling for fault-tolerant implementations. Our work shows that the development of a fast Fourier transformation can substantively reduce simulation costs by up to three orders of magnitude for the finite groups that we have investigated., Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 8 tables; minor typographical corrections

We provide practical simulation methods for scalar field theories on a quantum computer that yield improved asymptotics as well as concrete gate estimates for the simulation and physical qubit estimates using the surface code. We achieve these improvements through two optimizations. First, we consider a different approach for estimating the elements of the S-matrix. This approach is appropriate in general for 1+1D and for certain low-energy elastic collisions in higher dimensions. Second, we implement our approach using a series of different fault-tolerant simulation algorithms for Hamiltonians formulated both in the field occupation basis and field amplitude basis. Our algorithms are based on either second-order Trotterization or qubitization. The cost of Trotterization in occupation basis scales as $\widetilde{O}(\lambda N^7 |\Omega|^3/(M^{5/2} \epsilon^{3/2})$ where $\lambda$ is the coupling strength, $N$ is the occupation cutoff $|\Omega|$ is the volume of the spatial lattice, $M$ is the mass of the particles and $\epsilon$ is the uncertainty in the energy calculation used for the $S$-matrix determination. Qubitization in the field basis scales as $\widetilde{O}(|\Omega|^2 (k^2 \Lambda +kM^2)/\epsilon)$ where $k$ is the cutoff in the field and $\Lambda$ is a scaled coupling constant. We find in both cases that the bounds suggest physically meaningful simulations can be performed using on the order of $4\times 10^6$ physical qubits and $10^{12}$ $T$-gates which corresponds to roughly one day on a superconducting quantum computer with surface code and a cycle time of 100 ns, placing simulation of scalar field theory within striking distance of the gate counts for the best available chemistry simulation results., Comment: main text, 50 pages, supplementary 64 pages

Quantum computing is one of the most enticing computational paradigms with the potential to revolutionize diverse areas of future-generation computational systems. While quantum computing hardware has advanced rapidly, from tiny laboratory experiments to quantum chips that can outperform even the largest supercomputers on specialized computational tasks, these noisy-intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) processors are still too small and non-robust to be directly useful for any real-world applications. In this paper, we describe NASA's work in assessing and advancing the potential of quantum computing. We discuss advances in algorithms, both near- and longer-term, and the results of our explorations on current hardware as well as with simulations, including illustrating the benefits of algorithm-hardware co-design in the NISQ era. This work also includes physics-inspired classical algorithms that can be used at application scale today. We discuss innovative tools supporting the assessment and advancement of quantum computing and describe improved methods for simulating quantum systems of various types on high-performance computing systems that incorporate realistic error models. We provide an overview of recent methods for benchmarking, evaluating, and characterizing quantum hardware for error mitigation, as well as insights into fundamental quantum physics that can be harnessed for computational purposes., Comment: 27 pages, 0 figures

The Bacon-Shor code is a quantum error correcting subsystem code composed of weight 2 check operators that admits a single logical qubit, and has distance $d$ on a $d \times d$ square lattice. We show that when viewed as a Floquet code, by choosing an appropriate measurement schedule of the check operators, it can additionally host several dynamical logical qubits. Specifically, we identify a period 4 measurement schedule of the check operators that preserves logical information between the instantaneous stabilizer groups. Such a schedule measures not only the usual stabilizers of the Bacon-Shor code, but also additional stabilizers that protect the dynamical logical qubits against errors. We show that the code distance of these Floquet-Bacon-Shor codes scales as $\Theta(d/\sqrt{k})$ on a $d \times d$ lattice with $k$ dynamical logical qubits, along with the logical qubit of the parent subsystem code. Moreover, several errors are shown to be self-corrected purely by the measurement schedule itself., Comment: 10 pages + 3 page appendix, 3 figures, 1 table

We develop a hardware-efficient ansatz for variational optimization, derived from existing ansatze in the literature, that parametrizes subsets of all interactions in the Cost Hamiltonian in each layer. We treat gate orderings as a variational parameter and observe that doing so can provide significant performance boosts in experiments. We carried out experimental runs of a compilation-optimized implementation of fully-connected Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Hamiltonians on a 50-qubit linear-chain subsystem of Rigetti Aspen-M-3 transmon processor. Our results indicate that, for the best circuit designs tested, the average performance at optimized angles and gate orderings increases with circuit depth (using more parameters), despite the presence of a high level of noise. We report performance significantly better than using a random guess oracle for circuits involving up to approx 5000 two-qubit and approx 5000 one-qubit native gates. We additionally discuss various takeaways of our results toward more effective utilization of current and future quantum processors for optimization., Comment: v2: extended experimental results, updated references, fixed typos; v3: improved main narration, added new experimental data and analysis, updated references, fixed typos; v4: slightly improved narration, updated references 15+8 pages; 3+5 figures

Combinatorial optimization is a broadly attractive area for potential quantum advantage, but no quantum algorithm has yet made the leap. Noise in quantum hardware remains a challenge, and more sophisticated quantum-classical algorithms are required to bolster their performance. Here, we introduce an iterative quantum heuristic optimization algorithm to solve combinatorial optimization problems. The quantum algorithm reduces to a classical greedy algorithm in the presence of strong noise. We implement the quantum algorithm on a programmable superconducting quantum system using up to 72 qubits for solving paradigmatic Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Ising spin glass problems. We find the quantum algorithm systematically outperforms its classical greedy counterpart, signaling a quantum enhancement. Moreover, we observe an absolute performance comparable with a state-of-the-art semidefinite programming method. Classical simulations of the algorithm illustrate that a key challenge to reaching quantum advantage remains improving the quantum device characteristics., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures (+ 12 pages, 11 figures)

Quantum many-body scar states are highly excited eigenstates of many-body systems that exhibit atypical entanglement and correlation properties relative to typical eigenstates at the same energy density. Scar states also give rise to infinitely long-lived coherent dynamics when the system is prepared in a special initial state having finite overlap with them. Many models with exact scar states have been constructed, but the fate of scarred eigenstates and dynamics when these models are perturbed is difficult to study with classical computational techniques. In this work, we propose state preparation protocols that enable the use of quantum computers to study this question. We present protocols both for individual scar states in a particular model, as well as superpositions of them that give rise to coherent dynamics. For superpositions of scar states, we present both a system-size-linear depth unitary and a finite-depth nonunitary state preparation protocol, the latter of which uses measurement and postselection to reduce the circuit depth. For individual scarred eigenstates, we formulate an exact state preparation approach based on matrix product states that yields quasipolynomial-depth circuits, as well as a variational approach with a polynomial-depth ansatz circuit. We also provide proof of principle state-preparation demonstrations on superconducting quantum hardware., Comment: 20 Pages, 15 Figures, 2 Tables. V2: corrected typos

Quantum information science harnesses the principles of quantum mechanics to realize computational algorithms with complexities vastly intractable by current computer platforms. Typical applications range from quantum chemistry to optimization problems and also include simulations for high energy physics. The recent maturing of quantum hardware has triggered preliminary explorations by several institutions (including Fermilab) of quantum hardware capable of demonstrating quantum advantage in multiple domains, from quantum computing to communications, to sensing. The Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center, led by Fermilab, is dedicated to providing breakthroughs in quantum computing and sensing, mediating quantum engineering and HEP based material science. The main goal of the Center is to deploy quantum systems with superior performance tailored to the algorithms used in high energy physics. In this Snowmass paper, we discuss the two most promising superconducting quantum architectures for HEP algorithms, i.e. three-level systems (qutrits) supported by transmon devices coupled to planar devices and multi-level systems (qudits with arbitrary N energy levels) supported by superconducting 3D cavities. For each architecture, we demonstrate exemplary HEP algorithms and identify the current challenges, ongoing work and future opportunities. Furthermore, we discuss the prospects and complexities of interconnecting the different architectures and individual computational nodes. Finally, we review several different strategies of error protection and correction and discuss their potential to improve the performance of the two architectures. This whitepaper seeks to reach out to the HEP community and drive progress in both HEP research and QIS hardware., Comment: contribution to Snowmass 2021

We use the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) to simulate Kitaev spin models with and without integrability breaking perturbations, focusing in particular on the honeycomb and square-octagon lattices. These models are well known for being exactly solvable in a certain parameter regime via a mapping to free fermions. We use classical simulations to explore a novel variational ansatz that takes advantage of this fermionic representation and is capable of expressing the exact ground state in the solvable limit. We also demonstrate that this ansatz can be extended beyond this limit to provide excellent accuracy when compared to other VQE approaches. In certain cases, this fermionic representation is advantageous because it reduces by a factor of two the number of qubits required to perform the simulation. We also comment on the implications of our results for simulating non-Abelian anyons on quantum computers.

Quantum spin systems may offer the first opportunities for beyond-classical quantum computations of scientific interest. While general quantum simulation algorithms likely require error-corrected qubits, there may be applications of scientific interest prior to the practical implementation of quantum error correction. The variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) is a promising approach to finding energy eigenvalues on noisy quantum computers. Lattice models are of broad interest for use on near-term quantum hardware due to the sparsity of the number of Hamiltonian terms and the possibility of matching the lattice geometry to the hardware geometry. Here, we consider the Kitaev spin model on a hardware-native square-octagon qubit connectivity map, and examine the possibility of efficiently probing its rich phase diagram with VQE approaches. By benchmarking different choices of variational Ansatz states and classical optimizers, we illustrate the advantage of a mixed optimization approach using the Hamiltonian variational Ansatz (HVA) and the potential of probing the system's phase diagram using VQE. We further demonstrate the implementation of HVA circuits on Rigetti's Aspen-9 chip with error mitigation., Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables

We discuss the implementation of quantum algorithms for lattice $\Phi^4$ theory on circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) system. The field is represented on qudits in a discretized field amplitude basis. The main advantage of qudit systems is that its multi-level characteristic allows the field interaction to be implemented only with diagonal single-qudit gates. Considering the set of universal gates formed by the single-qudit phase gate and the displacement gate, we address initial state preparation and single-qudit gate synthesis with variational methods., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

We describe the simulation of dihedral gauge theories on digital quantum computers. The nonabelian discrete gauge group $D_N$ -- the dihedral group -- serves as an approximation to $U(1)\times\mathbb{Z}_2$ lattice gauge theory. In order to carry out such a lattice simulation, we detail the construction of efficient quantum circuits to realize basic primitives including the nonabelian Fourier transform over $D_N$, the trace operation, and the group multiplication and inversion operations. For each case the required quantum resources scale linearly or as low-degree polynomials in $n=\log N$. We experimentally benchmark our gates on the Rigetti Aspen-9 quantum processor for the case of $D_4$. The fidelity of all $D_4$ gates was found to exceed $80\%$., Comment: Published version

In order to assess whether quantum resources can provide an advantage over classical computation, it is necessary to characterize and benchmark the non-classical properties of quantum algorithms in a practical manner. In this paper, we show that using measurements in no more than 3 out of the possible $3^N$ bases, one can not only reconstruct the single-qubit reduced density matrices and measure the ability to create coherent superpositions, but also possibly verify entanglement across all $N$ qubits participating in the algorithm. We introduce a family of generalized Bell-type observables for which we establish an upper bound to the expectation values in fully separable states by proving a generalization of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, which may serve of independent interest. We demonstrate that a subset of such observables can serve as entanglement witnesses for QAOA-MaxCut states, and further argue that they are especially well tailored for this purpose by defining and computing an entanglement potency metric on witnesses. A subset of these observables also certify, in a weaker sense, the entanglement in GHZ states, which share the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry of QAOA-MaxCut. The construction of such witnesses follows directly from the cost Hamiltonian to be optimized, and not through the standard technique of using the projector of the state being certified. It may thus provide insights to construct similar witnesses for other variational algorithms prevalent in the NISQ era. We demonstrate our ideas with proof-of-concept experiments on the Rigetti Aspen-9 chip for ansatze containing up to 24 qubits.

Assembling future large-scale quantum computers out of smaller, specialized modules promises to simplify a number of formidable science and engineering challenges. One of the primary challenges in developing a modular architecture is in engineering high fidelity, low-latency quantum interconnects between modules. Here we demonstrate a modular solid state architecture with deterministic inter-module coupling between four physically separate, interchangeable superconducting qubit integrated circuits, achieving two-qubit gate fidelities as high as 99.1$\pm0.5$\% and 98.3$\pm$0.3\% for iSWAP and CZ entangling gates, respectively. The quality of the inter-module entanglement is further confirmed by a demonstration of Bell-inequality violation for disjoint pairs of entangled qubits across the four separate silicon dies. Having proven out the fundamental building blocks, this work provides the technological foundations for a modular quantum processor: technology which will accelerate near-term experimental efforts and open up new paths to the fault-tolerant era for solid state qubit architectures., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

Reinforcement learning has witnessed recent applications to a variety of tasks in quantum programming. The underlying assumption is that those tasks could be modeled as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). Here, we investigate the feasibility of this assumption by exploring its consequences for two fundamental tasks in quantum programming: state preparation and gate compilation. By forming discrete MDPs, focusing exclusively on the single-qubit case (both with and without noise), we solve for the optimal policy exactly through policy iteration. We find optimal paths that correspond to the shortest possible sequence of gates to prepare a state, or compile a gate, up to some target accuracy. As an example, we find sequences of $H$ and $T$ gates with length as small as $11$ producing $\sim 99\%$ fidelity for states of the form $(HT)^{n} |0\rangle$ with values as large as $n=10^{10}$. In the presence of gate noise, we demonstrate how the optimal policy adapts to the effects of noisy gates in order to achieve a higher state fidelity. Our work shows that one can meaningfully impose a discrete, stochastic and Markovian nature to a continuous, deterministic and non-Markovian quantum evolution, and provides theoretical insight into why reinforcement learning may be successfully used to find optimally short gate sequences in quantum programming.

We develop a general method for incentive-based programming of hybrid quantum-classical computing systems using reinforcement learning, and apply this to solve combinatorial optimization problems on both simulated and real gate-based quantum computers. Relative to a set of randomly generated problem instances, agents trained through reinforcement learning techniques are capable of producing short quantum programs which generate high quality solutions on both types of quantum resources. We observe generalization to problems outside of the training set, as well as generalization from the simulated quantum resource to the physical quantum resource.

PennyLane is a Python 3 software framework for differentiable programming of quantum computers. The library provides a unified architecture for near-term quantum computing devices, supporting both qubit and continuous-variable paradigms. PennyLane's core feature is the ability to compute gradients of variational quantum circuits in a way that is compatible with classical techniques such as backpropagation. PennyLane thus extends the automatic differentiation algorithms common in optimization and machine learning to include quantum and hybrid computations. A plugin system makes the framework compatible with any gate-based quantum simulator or hardware. We provide plugins for hardware providers including the Xanadu Cloud, Amazon Braket, and IBM Quantum, allowing PennyLane optimizations to be run on publicly accessible quantum devices. On the classical front, PennyLane interfaces with accelerated machine learning libraries such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, JAX, and Autograd. PennyLane can be used for the optimization of variational quantum eigensolvers, quantum approximate optimization, quantum machine learning models, and many other applications., Comment: Code available at https://github.com/XanaduAI/pennylane/ . Significant contributions to the code (new features, new plugins, etc.) will be recognized by the opportunity to be a co-author on this paper

Noisy intermediate-scale quantum computing devices are an exciting platform for the exploration of the power of near-term quantum applications. Performing nontrivial tasks in such devices requires a fundamentally different approach than what would be used on an error-corrected quantum computer. One such approach is to use hybrid algorithms, where problems are reduced to a parameterized quantum circuit that is often optimized in a classical feedback loop. Here we describe one such hybrid algorithm for machine learning tasks by building upon the classical algorithm known as random kitchen sinks. Our technique, called quantum kitchen sinks, uses quantum circuits to nonlinearly transform classical inputs into features that can then be used in a number of machine learning algorithms. We demonstrate the power and flexibility of this proposal by using it to solve binary classification problems for synthetic datasets as well as handwritten digits from the MNIST database. Using the Rigetti quantum virtual machine, we show that small quantum circuits provide significant performance lift over standard linear classical algorithms, reducing classification error rates from 50% to $<0.1\%$, and from $4.1\%$ to $1.4\%$ in these two examples, respectively. Further, we are able to run the MNIST classification problem, using full-sized MNIST images, on a Rigetti quantum processing unit, finding a modest performance lift over the linear baseline., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; v2: Added experimental results and new authors related to experimental effort

We investigate the effect of the back-reaction by non-supersymmetric probes in the Kuperstein-Sonnenschein model. In the limit where the back-reaction is small, we discuss physical properties of the back-reacted geometry. We further introduce additional probe flavours in this back-reacted geometry and study in detail the phase structure of this sector when a constant electromagnetic field or a chemical potential are present. We find that the Landau pole, which serves as the UV cut-off of the background geometry, also serves as an important scale in the corresponding thermodynamics of the additional flavour sector. We note that since these additional probe flavours are indistinguishable from the back-reacting flavours, the results we obtain point to a much richer phase structure of the system., Comment: 36 pages, 10 figures, pdfTeX, v2: corrected caption for figure 5, v3: rewritten parts of section 2 and 3 in terms of an effective 't Hooft coupling at the temperature scale, submitted to JHEP

A novel holographic model of chiral symmetry breaking has been proposed by Kuperstein and Sonnenschein by embedding non-supersymmetric probe D7 and anti-D7 branes in the Klebanov-Witten background. We study the dynamics of the probe flavours in this model in the presence of finite temperature and a constant electromagnetic field. In keeping with the weakly coupled field theory intuition, we find the magnetic field promotes spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry whereas the electric field restores it. The former effect is universally known as the "magnetic catalysis" in chiral symmetry breaking. In the presence of an electric field such a condensation is inhibited and a current flows. Thus we are faced with a steady-state situation rather than a system in equilibrium. We conjecture a definition of thermodynamic free energy for this steady-state phase and using this proposal we study the detailed phase structure when both electric and magnetic fields are present in two representative configurations: mutually perpendicular and parallel., Comment: 50 pages, multiple figures, minor typo fixed, references added