83.6QUANT-PHMar 23
Model selection in hybrid quantum neural networks with applications to quantum transformer architecturesHarsh Wadhwa, Rahul Bhowmick, Naipunnya Raj et al.
Quantum machine learning models generally lack principled design guidelines, often requiring full resource-intensive training across numerous choices of encodings, quantum circuit designs and initialization strategies to find effective configuration. To address this challenge, we develope the Quantum Bias-Expressivity Toolbox ($\texttt{QBET}$), a framework for evaluating quantum, classical, and hybrid transformer architectures. In this toolbox, we introduce lean metrics for Simplicity Bias ($\texttt{SB}$) and Expressivity ($\texttt{EXP}$), for comparing across various models, and extend the analysis of $\texttt{SB}$ to generative and multiclass-classification tasks. We show that $\texttt{QBET}$ enables efficient pre-screening of promising model variants obviating the need to execute complete training pipelines. In evaluations on transformer-based classification and generative tasks we employ a total of $18$ qubits for embeddings ($6$ qubits each for query, key, and value). We identify scenarios in which quantum self-attention variants surpass their classical counterparts by ranking the respective models according to the $\texttt{SB}$ metric and comparing their relative performance.
QUANT-PHMar 20, 2025
Enhancing variational quantum algorithms by balancing training on classical and quantum hardwareRahul Bhowmick, Harsh Wadhwa, Avinash Singh et al.
Quantum computers offer a promising route to tackling problems that are classically intractable such as in prime-factorization, solving large-scale linear algebra and simulating complex quantum systems, but potentially require fault-tolerant quantum hardware. On the other hand, variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are a promising approach for leveraging near-term quantum computers to solve complex problems. However, there remain major challenges in their trainability and resource costs on quantum hardware. Here we address these challenges by adopting Hardware Efficient and dynamical LIe algebra supported Ansatz (HELIA), and propose two training methods that combine an existing classical-enhanced g-sim method and the quantum-based Parameter-Shift Rule (PSR). Our improvement comes from distributing the resources required for gradient estimation and training to both classical and quantum hardware. We numerically evaluate our approach for ground-state estimation of 6 to 18-qubit Hamiltonians using the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and quantum phase classification for up to 12-qubit Hamiltonians using quantum neural networks. For VQE, our method achieves higher accuracy and success rates, with an average reduction in quantum hardware calls of up to 60% compared to purely quantum-based PSR. For classification, we observe test accuracy improvements of up to 2.8%. We also numerically demonstrate the capability of HELIA in mitigating barren plateaus, paving the way for training large-scale quantum models.
QUANT-PHJul 22, 2025
Meta-learning of Gibbs states for many-body Hamiltonians with applications to Quantum Boltzmann MachinesRuchira V Bhat, Rahul Bhowmick, Avinash Singh et al.
The preparation of quantum Gibbs states is a fundamental challenge in quantum computing, essential for applications ranging from modeling open quantum systems to quantum machine learning. Building on the Meta-Variational Quantum Eigensolver framework proposed by Cervera-Lierta et al.(2021) and a problem driven ansatz design, we introduce two meta-learning algorithms: Meta-Variational Quantum Thermalizer (Meta-VQT) and Neural Network Meta-VQT (NN-Meta VQT) for efficient thermal state preparation of parametrized Hamiltonians on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. Meta-VQT utilizes a fully quantum ansatz, while NN Meta-VQT integrates a quantum classical hybrid architecture. Both leverage collective optimization over training sets to generalize Gibbs state preparation to unseen parameters. We validate our methods on upto 8-qubit Transverse Field Ising Model and the 2-qubit Heisenberg model with all field terms, demonstrating efficient thermal state generation beyond training data. For larger systems, we show that our meta-learned parameters when combined with appropriately designed ansatz serve as warm start initializations, significantly outperforming random initializations in the optimization tasks. Furthermore, a 3- qubit Kitaev ring example showcases our algorithm's effectiveness across finite-temperature crossover regimes. Finally, we apply our algorithms to train a Quantum Boltzmann Machine (QBM) on a 2-qubit Heisenberg model with all field terms, achieving enhanced training efficiency, improved Gibbs state accuracy, and a 30-fold runtime speedup over existing techniques such as variational quantum imaginary time (VarQITE)-based QBM highlighting the scalability and practicality of meta-algorithm-based QBMs.