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Quantum simulators are widely seen as one of the most promising near-term applications of quantum technologies. However, it remains unclear to what extent a noisy device can output reliable results in the presence of unavoidable imperfections. Here we propose a framework to characterize the performance of quantum simulators by linking the robustness of measured quantum expectation values to the spectral properties of the output observable, which in turn can be associated with its macroscopic or microscopic character in Hilbert space. We show that, under general assumptions and on average over all states, imperfect devices are able to reproduce the dynamics of macroscopic observables accurately, while the relative error in the expectation value of microscopic observables is much larger on average. We experimentally demonstrate the universality of these features in a state-of-the-art quantum simulator and show that the predicted behavior is generic for a highly accurate device, without assuming any knowledge about the nature of the imperfections.

Quantum 2020

Quantifying the sensitivity to errors in analog quantum simulation

dynamical simulator

quantum control

quantum simulation

The Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing, in partnership with the Chinese Physical Society (CPS) and the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) are proud to have brought together the international quantum science community online for this inaugural conference.


Early career and leading researchers from universities, industry and government worldwide came together to share, learn and collaborate on the latest research and emerging areas of high interest across quantum science and technology. The broad themes covered by Quantum 2020 included:

Quantum communication;
Quantum computing and quantum simulation;
Quantum sensing, metrology and imaging;
Quantum information theory, software and algorithms;
Quantum foundations;
Quantum technology in industry.
The four-day event featured talks from world-renowned scientists, interactive poster sessions and two exciting panel discussions on the themes of Quantum Technology in Industry and Quantum Technology Programmes Around the World.


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The Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing, in partnership with the Chinese Physical Society (CPS) and the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) are proud to have brought together the international quantum science community online for this inaugural conference.

Early career and leading researchers from universities, industry and government worldwide came together to share, learn and collaborate on the latest research and emerging areas of high interest across quantum science and technology. 

technical paper

Various noise models have been developed to describe the propagation and effect of the noise from imperfect implementation of hardware. Usually, parameters characterizing such noise are treated as deterministic numbers regressed from test data. Instead, we use a Bayesian approach to infer the distributions of parameters by regarding error mitigation as a stochastic inverse problem. We will also compare the performance of our methodology with other error mitigation methods on the real device.

Characterizing Noise in Quantum Computing

Preparing the ground state of a Hamiltonian is a problem of great significance in physics with deep implications in combinatorial optimization. While the quantum adiabatic algorithm (QAA) is known to return the ground state for sufficiently long preparation times, the decoherence times of noisy, intermediate-scale quantum devices render the QAA infeasible. Variational approaches such as the quantum approximate optimization algorithm sparked intensive research interest, however, optimization of a multiparameter cost function requires billions of measurements already for a moderate number of qubits and can be prone to noise-induced barren plateaus, thus forsaking any practical quantum advantage. In our work, we aim at combining the strengths of the adiabatic and the variational approaches for fast and high-fidelity ground state preparation by keeping the number of measurements as low as possible, benchmarking our algorithm for a spin-1/2 transverse and longitudinal Ising chain (ZZXZ model) with N=100 sites. Our preliminary results already show a promising significant increase in the overlap with the ground state from 5.7% to 17.4% when compared to naive QAA for fixed total evolution time.

Faster adiabatic ground state preparation with few measurements in the NISQ era

The Green's function plays a crucial role when studying the nature of quantum many-body systems, especially strongly correlated systems. Although the development of quantum computers in the near future may enable us to compute energy spectra of classically intractable systems, methods to simulate the Green's function with near-term quantum algorithms have not been proposed yet. Here, we propose two methods to calculate the Green's function of a given Hamiltonian on near-term quantum computers. The first one makes use of a variational dynamics simulation of quantum systems and computes the dynamics of the Green's function in real time directly. The second one utilizes the Lehmann representation of the Green's function and a method which calculates excited states of the Hamiltonian. Both methods require shallow quantum circuits and are compatible with near-term quantum computers. We numerically simulated the Green's function of the Fermi-Hubbard model and demonstrated the validity of our proposals.

Calculation of the Green's function on near-term quantum computers

Quantum computers can be used for supervised learning by treating parameterised quantum circuits as models that map data inputs to predictions. While a lot of work has been done to investigate practical implications of this approach, many important theoretical properties of these models remain unknown. Here we investigate how the strategy with which data is encoded into the model influences the expressive power of parametrised quantum circuits as function approximators. We show that one can naturally write a quantum model as a partial Fourier series in the data, where the accessible frequencies are determined by the nature of the data encoding gates in the circuit. By repeating simple data encoding gates multiple times, quantum models can access increasingly rich frequency spectra. We show that there exist quantum models which can realise all possible sets of Fourier coefficients, and therefore, if the accessible frequency spectrum is asymptotically rich enough, such models are universal function approximators.

What Functions can Quantum Models Learn?

Designing feasible and qualitative methods for estimation of topological invariants, such as the Chern number, is of great significance for experimental realization of topological quantum matter.We present two key results in this direction. We first show that for two-band systems supported on Bravais lattices with 2n-fold rotation symmetry, the Chern number (mod 2n) of one of the energy bands can be inferred from the spin polarization of the band wavefunction at the high-symmetry crystal momenta in the Brillouin zone. We leverage this result to design an experimental scheme for ultracold bosonic gases that uses Bloch oscillations and Zeeman spectroscopy for validation of the topological phases with Chern number ±2 on a triangular lattice. As part of the latter result, we present the first experimental scheme to our knowledge for simulating spin-orbit coupling on a triangular optical lattice. Our results highlight Bloch oscillations as a robust tool for detection of topological order, and also open doors to new experiments based on spin-orbit coupled systems beyond square lattices.

Detection of Topological Order in Ultracold Atoms

We present multi-layer, mechanically-compliant photonic crystal slabs for use in cavity optomechanical experiments. The slabs have mechanical frequencies in the range of several hundred kilohertz and demonstrate reflectance of close to unity at telecom wavelengths [1]. An optomechanical system consisting of a mechanical resonator array in an optical cavity has been proposed as a method to reach the elusive single-photon strong coupling regime in optomechanics [2]. A critical requirement of such a system is to have highly reflective and uniform mechanical resonators of well-defined spacing. In this work we present our progress in this direction. We demonstrate devices fabricated in an AlGaAs heterostructure consisting of sub-μm spaced, near-identical mechanical resonators on top of a distributed Bragg reflector. We pattern these resonators with photonic crystal structures for engineering their out-of-plane reflectivity. We characterize the mechanical and optical properties of the slabs. The presented devices can be combined with micro-mirrors on an external chip forming a fully integrated chip-based realization of a multi-element optomechanical system. Additonally, two photonic crystal slabs with sub-μm gap can exhibit so-called photonic bound states in the continuum (BICs). Such photonic BICs can be exploited for surpassing the performance of conventional Fabry-Perot-based optomechanical microcavities [3].
References:
[1] S. K. Manjeshwar et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 116, 264001 (2020)
[2] A. Xuereb et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 223601 (2012)
[3] J. M. Fitzgerald et al., arXiv:2007.07883 [quant-ph]

Multi-layer suspended photonic crystal membranes in AlGaAs heterostructures for integrated cavity optomechanics

Einstein’s Equivalence Principle (EEP) is a cornerstone in the development
of General Relativity. Its validity implies that gravity is a geometrical
phenomena. Several experiments have proven that EEP is valid in the
classical regime. Nevertheless, its validity for quantum systems is still
undergoing experimental tests. In this work we study, following two
different approaches, the quantum free fall of quantum particles. Our
results suggest that EEP is violated in the quantum regime, but naturally
emerges as the energy/mass approaches macroscopic values. We first show
that the transient current density of a suddenly released beam of quantum
particles depends explicitly on the particle’s mass (thus contradicting
the universality of free fall), but such dependence disappear as the mass
increases (indicating the emerge of the EEP). We also consider the problem
of a quantum particle bouncing above a mirror in the presence of the
Earth’s gravitational field. By means of a simple method based on Fourier
analysis, we show that the classical probability distribution (which is
mass independent) emerges from its quantum-mechanical analogue in the
limit of large quantum numbers (high energy regime), thus also supporting
the emergence of the EEP from quantum mechanics.

On the validity of Einstein's Equivalence Principle in Quantum Mechanics

Tensor network theory and quantum simulation are respectively the key classical and quantum methods in understanding many-body quantum physics. Here we show hybridization of these two seemingly independent methods, inheriting both their distinct advantageous features of efficient representations of many-body wave functions. We introduce the framework of hybrid tensor networks with building blocks consisting of measurable quantum states and classically contractable tensors. As an example, we demonstrate efficient quantum simulation with hybrid tree tensor networks that use quantum hardware whose size is significantly smaller than the one of the target system. We numerically test our method for finding the ground state of 1D and 2D spin systems of up to 8×8 and 4×3 qubits with operations only acting on 8+1 and 4+1 qubits, respectively. Our approach paves the way to the near-term quantum simulation of large practical problems with intermediate size quantum hardware, with potential applications in quantum chemistry, quantum many-body physics, quantum field theory, and quantum gravity thought experiments.

Quantum Simulation with Hybrid Tensor Networks

We consider the estimation of a Hamiltonian parameter of a set of highly photosensitive samples, which are damaged after a few photons Nabs are absorbed. The samples are modelled as a two mode photonic system, where photons simultaneously acquire information on the unknown parameter and are absorbed at a fixed rate. We show that arbitrarily intense coherent states can obtain information at a rate that scales at most linearly with Nabs, whereas quantum states with finite intensity can overcome this bound. The quantum advantage scales like N/Nabs (where N is the number of photons in the quantum state), so that few-photon entangled states can already surpass the classical bound when Nabs is small. We discuss an implementation in cavity QED, where Fock states are both prepared and measured by coupling atomic ensembles to the cavities.

Weakly invasive metrology: quantum advantage and physical implementations

A single quantum measurement cannot perfectly determine the state of a quantum system; however it is possible to perfectly rule out certain states. Quantum state elimination is of foundational interest, relating to the so-called reality of the wave function, as well as having applications in quantum information and quantum communication. We consider unambiguous quantum state elimination for two qubits, where each qubit can be in one of two possible states resulting in four possible two-qubit states. We provide an optimal measurement for eliminating two states out of four two-qubit states. We also explore different possible optical realisations of this state elimination measurement using linear optics and generate a realization that uses a minimum number of optical elements. This state elimination measurement could be used for an XOR oblivious transfer protocol, where a receiver obtains either the first, second, or XOR of two bits a sender sends and the sender not knowing which bit was received. Moreover, one could also envisage a novel quantum key distribution schemes employing state elimination, where the final bit value cannot be thought of as created at the sender and transmitted to the receiver, but is only realised once the receiver's measurement is complete.

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Quantifying the sensitivity to errors in analog quantum simulation

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