Characterizing the Reproducibility of Noisy Quantum Circuits

Area of Science:

• Quantum Information Science
• Quantum Computing Hardware
• Error Mitigation

Background:

• Quantum circuit reproducibility is vital for validating quantum computing applications.
• Device noise causes statistical variations, leading to errors and irreproducible results.
• Assessing how device noise metrics bound circuit reproducibility remains a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To directly assess the reproducibility of noisy quantum circuits.
• To demonstrate that device characterization provides an analytic bound on observed variability.
• To establish an efficient method for predicting quantum circuit reproducibility.

Main Methods:

• Quantified circuit reproducibility using the Hellinger distance between computational results.
• Employed device characterization metrics, including readout and gate error rates.
• Validated the method on single-qubit test circuits using a superconducting transmon processor.

Main Results:

• Device characterization analytically bounds the variability of quantum circuit outcomes.
• A composite device parameter was developed to describe circuit reproducibility.
• This parameter accurately predicted an upper bound for the observed Hellinger distance across various circuits.

Conclusions:

• Device characterization offers a predictive correlation for assessing noisy quantum circuit reproducibility.
• This method provides an efficient approach to ensuring the reliability of quantum computations.
• The findings contribute to the verification and validation of quantum computing applications.