QUANT-PHMay 23
A brief history of quantum vs classical computational advantageRyan LaRose
In this review article we summarize all experiments claiming quantum computational advantage to date. Our review highlights challenges, loopholes, and refutations appearing in subsequent work to provide a complete picture of the current statuses of these experiments. In addition, we also discuss theoretical computational advantage in example problems such as approximate optimization and recommendation systems. Finally, we review recent experiments in quantum error correction -- the biggest frontier to reach experimental quantum advantage in Shor's algorithm.
QUANT-PHMay 4
Opportunities and challenges in scaling quantum error detection on hardwareYanis Le Fur, Ethan Egger, Hong-Ye Hu et al.
Quantum error detection can produce unbiased expectation values that exponentially converge to noiseless results as the code distance is increased. Despite this, its performance as an error mitigation technique is relatively understudied on quantum hardware because of its two main drawbacks: (i) the number of samples increases exponentially in the circuit depth/noise level, and (ii) the classical processing generally grows exponentially in the code distance, though exceptions exist. Additionally, the constant (but often large) overhead of embedding the code and logical operations on hardware can make accuracy worse instead of better. In this work, we seek to provide a clear picture of these opportunities and challenges for scaling quantum error detection on hardware. We do so by performing a detailed benchmarking study on real and simulated noisy quantum computers, using the repetition code and triangular color code for memory experiments and logical computations with up to $74$ physical qubits. In addition to these benchmarks, we estimate the pseudothreshold of codes to map the frontier of error detection on current and future quantum computers. Despite the challenges, our results show strong promise for scaling quantum error detection on hardware.
QUANT-PHMar 3, 2020
Robust data encodings for quantum classifiersRyan LaRose, Brian Coyle
Data representation is crucial for the success of machine learning models. In the context of quantum machine learning with near-term quantum computers, equally important considerations of how to efficiently input (encode) data and effectively deal with noise arise. In this work, we study data encodings for binary quantum classification and investigate their properties both with and without noise. For the common classifier we consider, we show that encodings determine the classes of learnable decision boundaries as well as the set of points which retain the same classification in the presence of noise. After defining the notion of a robust data encoding, we prove several results on robustness for different channels, discuss the existence of robust encodings, and prove an upper bound on the number of robust points in terms of fidelities between noisy and noiseless states. Numerical results for several example implementations are provided to reinforce our findings.