Showing papers by "Ping Koy Lam published in 2023"

An Expressive Ansatz for Low-Depth Quantum Optimisation

Abstract: The Quantum Approximate Optimisation Algorithm (QAOA) is a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm used to approximately solve combinatorial optimisation problems. It involves multiple iterations of a parameterised ansatz that consists of a problem and mixer Hamiltonian, with the parameters being classically optimised. While QAOA can be implemented on near-term quantum hardware, physical limitations such as gate noise, restricted qubit connectivity, and state-preparation-and-measurement (SPAM) errors can limit circuit depth and decrease performance. To address these limitations, this work introduces the eXpressive QAOA (XQAOA), a modified version of QAOA that assigns more classical parameters to the ansatz to improve the performance of low-depth quantum circuits. XQAOA includes an additional Pauli-Y component in the mixer Hamiltonian, thereby allowing the mixer to implement arbitrary unitary transformations on each qubit. To benchmark the performance of the XQAOA ansatz at low depth, we derive its closed-form expression for the MaxCut problem and compare it to QAOA, Multi-Angle QAOA (MA-QAOA), a Classical-Relaxed (CR) algorithm, and the state-of-the-art Goemans-Williamson (GW) algorithm on a set of unweighted regular graphs with 128 and 256 nodes and degrees ranging from 3 to 10. Our results show that XQAOA performs better than QAOA, MA-QAOA, and the CR algorithm on all graphs and outperforms the GW algorithm on graphs with degrees greater than 4. Additionally, we find an infinite family of graphs for which XQAOA solves MaxCut exactly and show analytically that for some graphs in this family, special cases of XQAOA can achieve a larger approximation ratio than QAOA. Overall, XQAOA is a more viable choice for implementing quantum combinatorial optimisation on near-term quantum devices, as it can achieve better results with a single iteration, despite requiring additional classical resources.

A new entropic quantum correlation measure for adversarial systems

Abstract: Quantum correlation often refers to correlations exhibited by two or more local subsystems under a suitable measurement. These correlations are beyond the framework of classical statistics and the associated classical probability distribution. Quantum entanglement is the most well-known of such correlations and plays an important role in quantum information theory. However, there exist non-entangled states that still possess quantum correlations which cannot be described by classical statistics. One such measure that captures these non-classical correlations is discord. Here we introduce a new measure of quantum correlations which we call entropic accord that fits between entanglement and discord. It is defined as the optimised minimax mutual information of the outcome of the projective measurements between two parties. We show a strict hierarchy exists between entanglement, entropic accord and discord for two-qubit states. We study two-qubit states which shows the relationship between the three entropic quantities. In addition to revealing a class of correlations that are distinct from discord and entanglement, the entropic accord measure can be inherently more intuitive in certain contexts.

Discriminating qubit states with entangling collective measurements

Abstract: It is a central fact in quantum mechanics that non-orthogonal states cannot be distinguished perfectly. This property ensures the security of quantum key distribution. It is therefore an important task in quantum communication to design and implement strategies to optimally distinguish quantum states. In general, when distinguishing multiple copies of quantum states the optimal measurement will be an entangling collective measurement. However, to date, collective measurements have not been used to enhance quantum state discrimination. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that, in the usual state discrimination setting, at least three copies of a quantum state are required to be measured collectively to outperform separable measurements. This is very challenging experimentally. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a protocol for distinguishing two copies of single qubit states using collective measurements which achieves a lower probability of error than can be achieved by any non-entangling measurement. We implement our measurements on an IBM Q System One device, a superconducting quantum processor. This work represents an important step towards optimising quantum communication systems.

Quantifying total correlations in quantum systems through the Pearson correlation coefficient

Abstract: A quantum state can be correlated in either a classical or a quantum way. Conventionally, the total correlations within the quantum system are quantified in a geometrical way through distance-based expressions such as the relative entropy or the square-norm. In this work, we provide an alternative method to quantify total correlations through the statistical measure of Pearson correlation coefficient. The two methods can be considered reciprocal to each other, given that they approach the notion of correlations from a different perspective. We also illustrate that, at least for the case of two-qubit systems, the distribution of the correlations among pairs of observables provides insight in regards to whether a system contains classical or quantum correlations. Finally, we show how correlations in quantum systems are connected to the general entropic uncertainty principle.

Optimal Single Qubit Tomography: Realization of Locally Optimal Measurements on a Quantum Computer

Abstract: Quantum bits, or qubits, are the fundamental building blocks of present quantum computers. Hence, it is important to be able to characterize the state of a qubit as accurately as possible. By evaluating the qubit characterization problem from the viewpoint of quantum metrology, we are able to find optimal measurements under the assumption of good prior knowledge. We implement these measurements on a superconducting quantum computer. Our experiment produces sufficiently low error to allow the saturation of the theoretical limits, given by the Nagaoka--Hayashi bound. We also present simulations of adaptive measurement schemes utilizing the proposed method. The results of the simulations show the robustness of the method in characterizing arbitrary qubit states with different amounts of prior knowledge.

Quantum-optimal information encoding using noisy passive linear optics

Abstract: The amount of information that a noisy channel can transmit has been one of the primary subjects of interest in information theory. In this work we consider a practically-motivated family of optical quantum channels that can be implemented without an external energy source. We optimize the Holevo information over procedures that encode information in attenuations and phase-shifts applied by these channels on a resource state of finite energy. It is shown that for any given input state and environment temperature, the maximum Holevo information can be achieved by an encoding procedure that uniformly distributes the channel's phase-shift parameter. Moreover for large families of input states, any maximizing encoding scheme has a finite number of channel attenuation values, simplifying the codewords to a finite number of rings around the origin in the output phase space. The above results and numerical evidence suggests that this property holds for all resource states. Our results are directly applicable to the quantum reading of an optical memory in the presence of environmental thermal noise.