QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

We study the invariant measure of the transport correlator for a chiral Hamiltonian and analyze its properties. The Jacobian of the invariant measure is a function of random phases. Then we distinguish the invariant measure before and after the phase integration. In the former case we found quantum diffusion of fermions and a uniform zero mode that is associated with particle conservation. After the phase integration the transport correlator reveals two types of evolution processes, namely classical diffusion and back-folded random walks. Which one dominates the other depends on the details of the underlying chiral Hamiltonian and may lead either to classical diffusion or to the suppression of diffusion.

We argue that it is the assumption of counterfactual definiteness and not locality or realism that results in Bell inequality violations. Furthermore, this assumption of counterfactual definiteness is not supported in classical mechanics. This means that the Bell inequality must fail classically, effectively removing the classical-quantum boundary, a conclusion prophesized by Bell himself. An implication here is that a local hidden variable theory, in the configuration space of classical mechanics cannot be ruled out. One very surprising result is that classical mechanics, in the context of Hamiltons stationary principle, may in fact have stronger correlations than quantum mechanics, in that it may be the key to beat Tsirelsons bound.

Quantum computing (QC) in the current NISQ-era is still limited. To gain early insights and advantages, hybrid applications are widely considered mitigating those shortcomings. Hybrid quantum machine learning (QML) comprises both the application of QC to improve machine learning (ML), and the application of ML to improve QC architectures. This work considers the latter, focusing on leveraging reinforcement learning (RL) to improve current QC approaches. We therefore introduce various generic challenges arising from quantum architecture search and quantum circuit optimization that RL algorithms need to solve to provide benefits for more complex applications and combinations of those. Building upon these challenges we propose a concrete framework, formalized as a Markov decision process, to enable to learn policies that are capable of controlling a universal set of quantum gates. Furthermore, we provide benchmark results to assess shortcomings and strengths of current state-of-the-art algorithms.

The study explores cat state formation in the strong Rydberg dressing regime, uncovering the emergence of cat states despite the presence of all orders of nonlinearities. This unexplored regime demonstrates potential for rapid cat state formation, particularly beneficial for operation in 2D lattices in Rydberg labs. Additionally, the paper discusses the potential for creating a superposition of m coherent spin states (m-SCSS), where the maximum m is determined by the number of atoms within the blockade radius $m=\sqrt{N}$.

We describe a general procedure for associating a minimal informationally-complete quantum measurement (or MIC) and a set of linearly independent post-measurement quantum states with a purely probabilistic representation of the Born Rule. Such representations are motivated by QBism, where the Born Rule is understood as a consistency condition between probabilities assigned to the outcomes of one experiment in terms of the probabilities assigned to the outcomes of other experiments. In this setting, the difference between quantum and classical physics is the way their physical assumptions augment bare probability theory: Classical physics corresponds to a trivial augmentation -- one just applies the Law of Total Probability (LTP) between the scenarios -- while quantum theory makes use of the Born Rule expressed in one or another of the forms of our general procedure. To mark the irreducible difference between quantum and classical, one should seek the representations that minimize the disparity between the expressions. We prove that the representation of the Born Rule obtained from a symmetric informationally-complete measurement (or SIC) minimizes this distinction in at least two senses -- the first to do with unitarily invariant distance measures between the rules, and the second to do with available volume in a reference probability simplex (roughly speaking a new kind of uncertainty principle). Both of these arise from a significant majorization result. This work complements recent studies in quantum computation where the deviation of the Born Rule from the LTP is measured in terms of negativity of Wigner functions.

A new Bohmian quantum-relativistic model, in which from the Klein-Gordon equation a generalization of the standard Zitterbewegung arises, is explored. It is obtained by introducing a new independent time parameter, whose relative motions are not directly observable but cause the quantum uncertainties of the observables. Unlike Bohm's original theory, the quantum potential does not affect the observable motion, as for a normal external potential, but it only determines that one relative to the new time variable, of which the Zitterbewegung of a free particle is an example. The model also involves a relativistic revision of the uncertainty principle.

Solving finite-temperature properties of quantum many-body systems is generally challenging to classical computers due to their high computational complexities. In this article, we present experiments to demonstrate a hybrid quantum-classical simulation of thermal quantum states. By combining a classical probabilistic model and a 5-qubit programmable superconducting quantum processor, we prepare Gibbs states and excited states of Heisenberg XY and XXZ models with high fidelity and compute thermal properties including the variational free energy, energy, and entropy with a small statistical error. Our approach combines the advantage of classical probabilistic models for sampling and quantum co-processors for unitary transformations. We show that the approach is scalable in the number of qubits, and has a self-verifiable feature, revealing its potentials in solving large-scale quantum statistical mechanics problems on near-term intermediate-scale quantum computers.

We study the state transfer through quantum walks placed on a bounded one-dimensional path. We first consider continuous-time quantum walks from a Gaussian state. We find such a state when superposing centered on the starting and antipodal positions preserves a high fidelity for a long time and when sent on large circular graphs. Furthermore, it spreads with a null group velocity. We also explore discrete-time quantum walks to evaluate the qubit fidelity throughout the walk. In this case, the initial state is a product of states between a qubit and a Gaussian superposition of position states. Then, we add two $\sigma_x$ gates to confine this delocalized qubit. We also find that this bounded system dynamically enables periodic recovery of the initial separable state. We outline some applications of our results in dynamic graphs and propose quantum circuits to implement them based on the available literature.

We discuss a recent work by J.~Lawrence et al.[arxiv.org/abs/2208.11793] criticizing relational quantum mechanics (RQM) and based on a famous nonlocality theorem Going back to Greenberger Horne and Zeilinger (GHZ). Here, we show that the claims presented in this recent work are unjustified and we debunk the analysis.

We define the entanglement entropy of free fermion quantum states in an arbitrary spacetime slice of a discrete set of points, and particularly investigate timelike (causal) slices. For 1D lattice free fermions with an energy bandwidth $E_0$, we calculate the time-direction entanglement entropy $S_A$ in a time-direction slice of a set of times $t_n=n\tau$ ($1\le n\le K$) spanning a time length $t$ on the same site. For zero temperature ground states, we find that $S_A$ shows volume law when $\tau\gg\tau_0=2\pi/E_0$; in contrast, $S_A\sim \frac{1}{3}\ln t$ when $\tau=\tau_0$, and $S_A\sim\frac{1}{6}\ln t$ when $\tau<\tau_0$, resembling the Calabrese-Cardy formula for one flavor of nonchiral and chiral fermion, respectively. For finite temperature thermal states, the mutual information also saturates when $\tau<\tau_0$. For non-eigenstates, volume law in $t$ and signatures of the Lieb-Robinson bound velocity can be observed in $S_A$. For generic spacetime slices with one point per site, the zero temperature entanglement entropy shows a clear transition from area law to volume law when the slice varies from spacelike to timelike.

We present a new framework for assessing the power of measurement-based quantum computation (MBQC) on short-range entangled symmetric resource states, in spatial dimension one. It requires fewer assumptions than previously known. The formalism can handle finitely extended systems (as opposed to the thermodynamic limit), and does not require translation-invariance. Further, we strengthen the connection between MBQC computational power and string order. Namely, we establish that whenever a suitable set of string order parameters is non-zero, a corresponding set of unitary gates can be realized with fidelity arbitrarily close to unity.

We consider the extent to which a noisy quantum computer is able to simulate the time evolution of a quantum spin system in a faithful manner. Given a specific set of assumptions regarding the manner in which noise acting on such a device can be modelled at the circuit level, we show how the effects of noise can be reinterpreted as a modification to the dynamics of the original system being simulated. In particular, we find that this modification corresponds to the introduction of static Lindblad noise terms, which act in addition to the original unitary dynamics. The form of these noise terms depends not only on the underlying noise processes occurring on the device, but also on the original unitary dynamics, as well as the manner in which these dynamics are simulated on the device, i.e., the choice of quantum algorithm. We call this effectively simulated open quantum system the noisy algorithm model. Our results are confirmed through numerical analysis.

Shadow tomography is a framework for constructing succinct descriptions of quantum states using randomized measurement bases, called classical shadows, with powerful methods to bound the estimators used. We recast existing experimental protocols for continuous-variable quantum state tomography in the classical-shadow framework, obtaining rigorous bounds on the number of independent measurements needed for estimating density matrices from these protocols. We analyze the efficiency of homodyne, heterodyne, photon number resolving (PNR), and photon-parity protocols. To reach a desired precision on the classical shadow of an $N$-photon density matrix with a high probability, we show that homodyne detection requires an order $\mathcal{O}(N^{4+1/3})$ measurements in the worst case, whereas PNR and photon-parity detection require $\mathcal{O}(N^4)$ measurements in the worst case (both up to logarithmic corrections). We benchmark these results against numerical simulation as well as experimental data from optical homodyne experiments. We find that numerical and experimental homodyne tomography significantly outperforms our bounds, exhibiting a more typical scaling of the number of measurements that is close to linear in $N$. We extend our single-mode results to an efficient construction of multimode shadows based on local measurements.

Quasiprobability representation is an important tool for analyzing a quantum system, such as a quantum state or a quantum circuit.

In this work, we propose classical algorithms specialized for approximating outcome probabilities of a linear optical circuit using $s$-parameterized quasiprobability distributions. Notably, we can reduce the negativity bound of a circuit from exponential to at most polynomial for specific cases by modulating the shapes of quasiprobability distributions thanks to the norm-preserving property of a linear optical transformation.

Consequently, our scheme renders an efficient estimation of outcome probabilities with precision depending on the classicality of the circuit.

Surprisingly, when the classicality is high enough, we reach a polynomial-time estimation algorithm within a multiplicative error.

Our results provide quantum-inspired algorithms for approximating various matrix functions beating best-known results. Moreover, we give sufficient conditions for the classical simulability of Gaussian boson sampling using the approximating algorithm for any (marginal) outcome probability under the poly-sparse condition.

Our study sheds light on the power of linear optics, providing plenty of quantum-inspired algorithms for problems in computational complexity.

This report describes a variety of programming assignments that can be used to teach quantum computing in a practical manner. These assignments let the learners get hands-on experience with all stages of quantum software development process, from solving quantum computing problems and implementing the solutions to debugging the programs, performing resource estimation, and running the code on quantum hardware.

We introduce a simple algorithm that efficiently computes tensor products of Pauli matrices. This is done by tailoring the calculations to this specific case, which allows to avoid unnecessary calculations. The strength of this strategy is benchmarked against state-of-the-art techniques, showing a remarkable acceleration. As a side product, we provide an optimized method for one key calculus in quantum simulations: the Pauli basis decomposition of Hamiltonians.

Recent efforts in Analysis of Boolean Functions aim to extend core results to new spaces, including to the slice $\binom{[n]}{k}$, the hypergrid $[K]^n$, and noncommutative spaces (matrix algebras). We present here a new way to relate functions on the hypergrid (or products of cyclic groups) to their harmonic extensions over the polytorus. We show the supremum of a function $f$ over products of the cyclic group $\{\exp(2\pi i k/K)\}_{k=1}^K$ controls the supremum of $f$ over the entire polytorus $(\{z\in\mathbf{C}:|z|=1\}^n)$, with multiplicative constant $C$ depending on $K$ and $\text{deg}(f)$ only. This Remez-type inequality appears to be the first such estimate that is dimension-free (i.e., $C$ does not depend on $n$).

This dimension-free Remez-type inequality removes the main technical barrier to giving $\mathcal{O}(\log n)$ sample complexity, polytime algorithms for learning low-degree polynomials on the hypergrid and low-degree observables on level-$K$ qudit systems. In particular, our dimension-free Remez inequality implies new Bohnenblust--Hille-type estimates which are central to the learning algorithms and appear unobtainable via standard techniques. Thus we extend to new spaces a recent line of work \cite{EI22, CHP, VZ22} that gave similarly efficient methods for learning low-degree polynomials on the hypercube and observables on qubits.

An additional product of these efforts is a new class of distributions over which arbitrary quantum observables are well-approximated by their low-degree truncations -- a phenomenon that greatly extends the reach of low-degree learning in quantum science \cite{CHP}.

The ground-state phases of a quantum many-body system are characterized by an order parameter, which changes abruptly at quantum phase transitions when an external control parameter is varied. Interestingly, these concepts may be extended to excited states, for which it is possible to define equivalent excited-state quantum phase transitions. However, the experimental mapping of a phase diagram of excited quantum states has not yet been demonstrated. Here we present the experimental determination of the excited-state phase diagram of an atomic ferromagnetic quantum gas, where, crucially, the excitation energy is one of the control parameters. The obtained phase diagram exemplifies how the extensive Hilbert state of quantum many-body systems can be structured by the measurement of well-defined order parameters.

Weak values and Kirkwood--Dirac (KD) quasiprobability distributions have been independently associated with both foundational issues in quantum theory and advantages in quantum metrology. We propose simple quantum circuits to measure weak values, KD distributions, and spectra of density matrices without the need for post-selection. This is achieved by measuring unitary-invariant, relational properties of quantum states, which are functions of Bargmann invariants, the concept that underpins our unified perspective. Our circuits also enable experimental implementation of various functions of KD distributions, such as out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) and the quantum Fisher information in post-selected parameter estimation, among others. An upshot is a unified view of nonclassicality in all those tasks. In particular, we discuss how negativity and imaginarity of Bargmann invariants relate to set coherence.

We study general lattice bosons with long-range hopping and long-range interactions decaying as $|x-y|^{-\alpha} $ with $\alpha\in (d+2,2d+1)$. We find a linear light cone for the information propagation starting from suitable initial states. We apply these bounds to estimate the minimal time needed for quantum messaging, for the propagation of quantum correlations, and for quantum state control. The proofs are based on the ASTLO method (adiabatic spacetime localization observables). Our results pose previously unforeseen limitations on the applicability of fast-transfer and entanglement-generation protocols developed for breaking linear light cones in long-range and/or bosonic systems.