arXiv subjects

Haozhen Situ

Publications and source records attributed to Haozhen Situ.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Quantum Generative Diffusion Model: A Fully Quantum-Mechanical Model for Generating Quantum State Ensemble

Mixed quantum states are the native description of many physically important quantum systems, making their generation a fundamental task in quantum information processing. However, constructing a diffusion process that generates density operators while keeping every reverse step physically valid remains nontrivial. This work introduces Quantum Generative Diffusion Model (QGDM), a fully quantum-mechanical model whose forward and backward processes are grounded in quantum channel theory. Through a non-unitary forward process, any target quantum state can be transformed into a completely mixed state. A trainable backward process recovers the former from the latter. We introduce partial trace to make the backward process non-unitary, and share parameters across timesteps by incorporating temporal information as an input. We present QGDM's resource-efficient version to reduce auxiliary qubits while preserving generative capabilities. We theoretically analyze the denoising design, showing it avoids a low-loss shortcut that traps training and cause generation failure. Simulations confirm that QGDM outperforms quantum generative adversarial networks on random pure- and mixed-state generation, with better noise robustness than other quantum generative models and a task-specialized approach for practical Gibbs state generation. Hence, QGDM provides a channel-based diffusion framework for learning fixed mixed-state targets, extending quantum generative modeling toward realistic quantum information settings.

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arXiv2026

A Dynamical Lie-Algebraic Framework for Hamiltonian Engineering and Quantum Control

Determining the unitary dynamics accessible from finite Hamiltonian resources is a central problem in Hamiltonian engineering and quantum control. Dynamical Lie algebras (DLAs) connect available control Hamiltonians with the reachable dynamics, but their use as a design tool for modifying Hamiltonian generator sets remains less developed. In this work, we develop a finite-dimensional DLA framework for three generator-set operations: composition, invariance, and reduction. For composition, we construct direct sums of component DLAs using spectral projectors on an auxiliary register. For invariance, we analyze when modifications of Pauli-string generating sets preserve the generated Lie algebra, and introduce algebraic diagnostics for added generators. For reduction, we consider compact reductive DLAs and show how projection onto selected simple ideals gives reduced generating sets whose Lie closures are the corresponding ideal sums. We illustrate these results with finite-dimensional examples and numerical checks, including direct-sum dimension addition, central-spin invariance diagnostics, and DLA-based ansatz reduction for block-local Hamiltonians. The results show how DLA structure can be used to diagnose controllability and guide Hamiltonian generator design under explicit algebraic assumptions.

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arXiv2026

Recent Advances in Quantum Architecture Search

Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) constitute a prominent framework for exploring the capabilities of near-term quantum computers. As the effectiveness of VQAs depends heavily on the design of variational quantum circuits, Quantum Architecture Search (QAS) has emerged as a critical research area to automate the discovery of high-performing circuit structures. This paper reviews key advancements in current research on QAS, including its core concepts, representative methodologies, and applications. The content is structured to ensure broad accessibility for a diverse audience of researchers while preserving the core principles of complex methodologies. In addition, we discuss remaining challenges and suggest potential research directions to offer perspectives on future exploration in this rapidly evolving field.

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arXiv2026

From Membership-Privacy Leakage to Quantum Machine Unlearning

Quantum machine learning (QML) has the potential to achieve quantum advantage for specific tasks by combining quantum computation with classical machine learning (ML). In classical ML, a significant challenge is membership-privacy leakage, whereby an attacker can infer from model outputs whether specific data were used in training. When specific data are required to be withdrawn, removing their influence from the trained model becomes necessary. Machine unlearning (MU) addresses this issue by enabling the model to forget the withdrawn data, thereby preventing membership-privacy leakage. However, this leakage remains underexplored in QML. This raises two research questions: do QML models leak membership privacy about their training data, and can MU methods efficiently mitigate such leakage in QML models? We investigate these questions using two quantum neural network (QNN) architectures, a basic QNN and a hybrid QNN, evaluated in noiseless simulations and cloud quantum device demonstrations. To answer the first question, we analyze how quantum constraints shape membership-privacy leakage in QML and then formalize a realistic gray-box threat model accordingly. Based on this, we design a membership inference attack (MIA) tailored to QNN outputs, and our results provide clear evidence of membership leakage in both QNNs. To answer the second question, we propose a quantum machine unlearning (QMU) framework, comprising three MU mechanisms. Evaluations on two QNN architectures show that QMU removes the influence of the withdrawn data while preserving accuracy for retained data. A comparative analysis further characterizes the three MU mechanisms with respect to data dependence, computational cost, and robustness.

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arXiv2025

Learnability of a hybrid quantum-classical neural network for graph-structured quantum data

Graph-structured data commonly arise in many real-world applications, and this extends naturally into the quantum setting, where quantum data with inherent graph structures are frequently generated by typical quantum data sources. However, existing state-of-the-art models often lack training and evaluation on deeper quantum neural networks. In this work, we design a hybrid quantum-classical neural network with deep residual learning, termed Res-HQCNN, specifically designed to handle graph-structured quantum data.Building upon this architecture, we systematically explore the interplay between residual block structures and graph information in both training and testing phases. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that incorporating graph structure information into the quantum data significantly improves learning efficiency compared to the existing model. Additionally, we conduct comparative experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of residual blocks. Our results show that the residual structure enables deeper Res-HQCNN models to learn graph-structured quantum data more efficiently and accurately.

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arXiv2025

Overcoming Dimensional Factorization Limits in Discrete Diffusion Models through Quantum Joint Distribution Learning

Discrete diffusion models represent a significant advance in generative modeling, demonstrating remarkable success in synthesizing complex, high-quality discrete data. However, to avoid exponential computational costs, they typically rely on calculating per-dimension transition probabilities when learning high-dimensional distributions. In this study, we rigorously prove that this approach leads to a worst-case linear scaling of Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence with data dimension. To address this, we propose a Quantum Discrete Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Model (QD3PM), which enables joint probability learning through diffusion and denoising in exponentially large Hilbert spaces, offering a theoretical pathway to faithfully capture the true joint distribution. By deriving posterior states through quantum Bayes' theorem, similar to the crucial role of posterior probabilities in classical diffusion models, and by learning the joint probability, we establish a solid theoretical foundation for quantum-enhanced diffusion models. For denoising, we design a quantum circuit that utilizes temporal information for parameter sharing and incorporates learnable classical-data-controlled rotations for encoding. Exploiting joint distribution learning, our approach enables single-step sampling from pure noise, eliminating iterative requirements of existing models. Simulations demonstrate the proposed model's superior accuracy in modeling complex distributions compared to factorization methods. Hence, this paper establishes a new theoretical paradigm in generative models by leveraging the quantum advantage in joint distribution learning.

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arXiv2024

Enhancing Variational Quantum Circuit Training: An Improved Neural Network Approach for Barren Plateau Mitigation

Combining classical optimization with parameterized quantum circuit evaluation, variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) are among the most promising algorithms in near-term quantum computing. Similar to neural networks (NNs), VQAs iteratively update circuit parameters to optimize a cost function. However, the training of variational quantum circuits (VQCs) is susceptible to a phenomenon known as barren plateaus (BPs). Various methods have been proposed to mitigate this issue, such as using neural networks to generate VQC parameters. In this paper, we improve the NN-based BP mitigation approach by refining the neural network architecture and extend its applicability to a more generalized scenario that includes random quantum inputs and VQC structures. We evaluate the effectiveness of this approach by comparing the convergence speed before and after it is utilized. Furthermore, we give an explanation for the effectiveness of this method by utilizing a loss landscape visualization technique and the expressibility metric of VQC. The smoothness of the loss landscape offers an intuitive insight into the method's utility, while the reduction in expressibility accounts for the enhanced trainability. Our research highlights the universal applicability of the NN-based BP mitigation approach, underscoring its potential to drive progress in the development of VQAs across diverse domains.

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arXiv2024

Learning the expressibility of quantum circuit ansatz using transformer

With the exponentially faster computation for certain problems, quantum computing has garnered significant attention in recent years. Variational quantum algorithms are crucial methods to implement quantum computing, and an appropriate task-specific quantum circuit ansatz can effectively enhance the quantum advantage of VQAs. However, the vast search space makes it challenging to find the optimal task-specific ansatz. Expressibility, quantifying the diversity of quantum circuit ansatz states to explore the Hilbert space effectively, can be used to evaluate whether one ansatz is superior to another. In this work, we propose using a transformer model to predict the expressibility of quantum circuit ansatze. We construct a dataset containing random PQCs generated by the gatewise pipeline, with varying numbers of qubits and gates. The expressibility of the circuits is calculated using three measures: KL divergence, relative KL divergence, and maximum mean discrepancy. A transformer model is trained on the dataset to capture the intricate relationships between circuit characteristics and expressibility. Four evaluation metrics are employed to assess the performance of the transformer. Numerical results demonstrate that the trained model achieves high performance and robustness across various expressibility measures. This research can enhance the understanding of the expressibility of quantum circuit ansatze and advance quantum architecture search algorithms.

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arXiv2024

Distributed quantum architecture search

Variational quantum algorithms, inspired by neural networks, have become a novel approach in quantum computing. However, designing efficient parameterized quantum circuits remains a challenge. Quantum architecture search tackles this by adjusting circuit structures along with gate parameters to automatically discover high-performance circuit structures. In this study, we propose an end-to-end distributed quantum architecture search framework, where we aim to automatically design distributed quantum circuit structures for interconnected quantum processing units with specific qubit connectivity. We devise a circuit generation algorithm which incorporates TeleGate and TeleData methods to enable nonlocal gate implementation across quantum processing units. While taking into account qubit connectivity, we also incorporate qubit assignment from logical to physical qubits within our quantum architecture search framework. A two-stage progressive training-free strategy is employed to evaluate extensive circuit structures without circuit training costs. Through numerical experiments on three VQE tasks, the efficacy and efficiency of our scheme is demonstrated. Our research into discovering efficient structures for distributed quantum circuits is crucial for near-term quantum computing where a single quantum processing unit has a limited number of qubits. Distributed quantum circuits allow for breaking down complex computations into manageable parts that can be processed across multiple quantum processing units.

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arXiv2024

Polygamy relations for tripartite and multipartite quantum systems

We study the polygamy property for tripartite and multipartite quantum systems. In tripartite system, we build a solution set for polygamy in tripartite system and find a lower bound of the set, which can be a sufficient and necessary condition for any quantum entanglement of assistance $Q$ to be polygamous. In multipartite system, we firstly provide generalized definitions for polygamy in two kind of divisions of $n$-qubit systems, and then build polygamy inequalities with a polygamy power $β$, repectively. Moreover, we use right triangle and tetrahedron to explain our polygamy relations according to the new definitions.

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arXiv2023

Detection and evaluation of abnormal user behavior based on quantum generation adversarial network

Quantum computing holds tremendous potential for processing high-dimensional data, capitalizing on the unique capabilities of superposition and parallelism within quantum states. As we navigate the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, the exploration of quantum computing applications has emerged as a compelling frontier. One area of particular interest within the realm of cyberspace security is Behavior Detection and Evaluation (BDE). Notably, the detection and evaluation of internal abnormal behaviors pose significant challenges, given their infrequent occurrence or even their concealed nature amidst vast volumes of normal data. In this paper, we introduce a novel quantum behavior detection and evaluation algorithm (QBDE) tailored for internal user analysis. The QBDE algorithm comprises a Quantum Generative Adversarial Network (QGAN) in conjunction with a classical neural network for detection and evaluation tasks. The QGAN is built upon a hybrid architecture, encompassing a Quantum Generator ($G_Q$) and a Classical Discriminator ($D_C$). $G_Q$, designed as a parameterized quantum circuit (PQC), collaborates with $D_C$, a classical neural network, to collectively enhance the analysis process. To address the challenge of imbalanced positive and negative samples, $G_Q$ is employed to generate negative samples. Both $G_Q$ and $D_C$ are optimized through gradient descent techniques. Through extensive simulation tests and quantitative analyses, we substantiate the effectiveness of the QBDE algorithm in detecting and evaluating internal user abnormal behaviors. Our work not only introduces a novel approach to abnormal behavior detection and evaluation but also pioneers a new application scenario for quantum algorithms. This paradigm shift underscores the promising prospects of quantum computing in tackling complex cybersecurity challenges.

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arXiv2023

Improvements on "Multi-Party Quantum Summation without a Third Party based on $d$-Dimensional Bell States"

In 2021, Wu et al. presented a multi-party quantum summation scheme exploiting the entanglement properties of d-dimensional Bell states (Wu et al. in Quantum Inf Process 20:200, 2021). In particular, the authors proposed a three-party quantum summation protocol and then extended their work to a multi-party case. It is claimed that their protocol is secure against outside and participants' attacks. However, this work points out that Wu's protocol has a loophole, i.e., two or more dishonest participants who meet a specific location relationship can conspire to obtain the private inputs of some honest participants without being detected. Accordingly, improvements are proposed to address these issues.

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arXiv2023

Hybrid Quantum Neural Network Structures for Image Multi-classification

Image classification is a fundamental computer vision problem, and neural networks offer efficient solutions. With advancing quantum technology, quantum neural networks have gained attention. However, they work only for low-dimensional data and demand dimensionality reduction and quantum encoding. Two recent image classification methods have emerged: one employs PCA dimensionality reduction and angle encoding, the other integrates QNNs into CNNs to boost performance. Despite numerous algorithms, comparing PCA reduction with angle encoding against the latter remains unclear. This study explores these algorithms' performance in multi-class image classification and proposes an optimized hybrid quantum neural network suitable for the current environment. Investigating PCA-based quantum algorithms unveils a barren plateau issue for QNNs as categories increase, unsuitable for multi-class in the hybrid setup. Simultaneously, the combined CNN-QNN model partly overcomes QNN's multi-class training challenges but lags in accuracy to superior traditional CNN models. Additionally, this work explores transfer learning in the hybrid quantum neural network model. In conclusion, quantum neural networks show promise but require further research and optimization, facing challenges ahead.

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arXiv2023

GSQAS: Graph Self-supervised Quantum Architecture Search

Quantum Architecture Search (QAS) is a promising approach to designing quantum circuits for variational quantum algorithms (VQAs). However, existing QAS algorithms require to evaluate a large number of quantum circuits during the search process, which makes them computationally demanding and limits their applications to large-scale quantum circuits. Recently, predictor-based QAS has been proposed to alleviate this problem by directly estimating the performances of circuits according to their structures with a predictor trained on a set of labeled quantum circuits. However, the predictor is trained by purely supervised learning, which suffers from poor generalization ability when labeled training circuits are scarce. It is very time-consuming to obtain a large number of labeled quantum circuits because the gate parameters of quantum circuits need to be optimized until convergence to obtain their ground-truth performances. To overcome these limitations, we propose GSQAS, a graph self-supervised QAS, which trains a predictor based on self-supervised learning. Specifically, we first pre-train a graph encoder on a large number of unlabeled quantum circuits using a well-designed pretext task in order to generate meaningful representations of circuits. Then the downstream predictor is trained on a small number of quantum circuits' representations and their labels. Once the encoder is trained, it can apply to different downstream tasks. In order to better encode the spatial topology information and avoid the huge dimension of feature vectors for large-scale quantum circuits, we design a scheme to encode quantum circuits as graphs. Simulation results on searching circuit structures for variational quantum eigensolver and quantum state classification show that GSQAS outperforms the state-of-the-art predictor-based QAS, achieving better performance with fewer labeled circuits.

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arXiv2022

Quantum continual learning of quantum data realizing knowledge backward transfer

For the goal of strong artificial intelligence that can mimic human-level intelligence, AI systems would have the ability to adapt to ever-changing scenarios and learn new knowledge continuously without forgetting previously acquired knowledge. When a machine learning model is consecutively trained on multiple tasks that come in sequence, its performance on previously learned tasks may drop dramatically during the learning process of the newly seen task. To avoid this phenomenon termed catastrophic forgetting, continual learning, also known as lifelong learning, has been proposed and become one of the most up-to-date research areas of machine learning. As quantum machine learning blossoms in recent years, it is interesting to develop quantum continual learning. This paper focuses on the case of quantum models for quantum data where the computation model and the data to be processed are both quantum. The gradient episodic memory method is incorporated to design a quantum continual learning scheme that overcomes catastrophic forgetting and realizes knowledge backward transfer. Specifically, a sequence of quantum state classification tasks is continually learned by a variational quantum classifier whose parameters are optimized by a classical gradient-based optimizer. The gradient of the current task is projected to the closest gradient, avoiding the increase of the loss at previous tasks, but allowing the decrease. Numerical simulation results show that our scheme not only overcomes catastrophic forgetting, but also realize knowledge backward transfer, which means the classifier's performance on previous tasks is enhanced rather than compromised while learning a new task.

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arXiv2022

Complementarity between Success Probability and Coherence in Grover Search Algorithm

Coherence plays a very important role in Grover search algorithm (GSA). In this paper, we define the normalization coherence N(C), where C is a coherence measurement. In virtue of the constraint of large N and Shannon's maximum entropy principle, a surprising complementary relationship between the coherence and the success probability of GSA is obtained. Namely, P_s(t)+N(C(t))\simeq 1, where C is in terms of the relative entropy of coherence and l_1 norm of coherence, t is the number of the search iterations in GSA. Moreover, the equation holds no matter in ideal or noisy environments. Considering the number of qubits is limited in the recent noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, some exact numerical calculation experiments are presented for different database sizes N with different types of noises. The results show that the complementary between the success probability and the coherence almost always hold. This work provides a new perspective to improve the success probability by manipulating its complementary coherence, and vice versa. It has an excellent potential for helping quantum algorithms design in the NISQ era.

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arXiv2022

Fast optimal structures generator for parameterized quantum circuits

Current structure optimization algorithms optimize the structure of quantum circuit from scratch for each new task of variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) without using any prior experience, which is inefficient and time-consuming. Besides, the number of quantum gates is a hyper-parameter of these algorithms, which is difficult and time-consuming to determine. In this paper, we propose a rapid structure optimization algorithm for VQAs which automatically determines the number of quantum gates and directly generates the optimal structures for new tasks with the meta-trained graph variational autoencoder (VAE) on a number of training tasks. We also develop a meta-trained predictor to filter out circuits with poor performances to further accelerate the algorithm. Simulation results show that our method output structures with lower loss and it is 70 times faster in running time compared to a state-of-the-art algorithm, namely DQAS.

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arXiv2021

Quantum Architecture Search with Meta-learning

Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) have been successfully applied to quantum approximate optimization algorithms, variational quantum compiling and quantum machine learning models. The performances of VQAs largely depend on the architecture of parameterized quantum circuits (PQCs). Quantum architecture search (QAS) aims to automate the design of PQCs in different VQAs with classical optimization algorithms. However, current QAS algorithms do not use prior experiences and search the quantum architecture from scratch for each new task, which is inefficient and time consuming. In this paper, we propose a meta quantum architecture search (MetaQAS) algorithm, which learns good initialization heuristics of the architecture (i.e., meta-architecture), along with the meta-parameters of quantum gates from a number of training tasks such that they can adapt to new tasks with a small number of gradient updates, which leads to fast learning on new tasks. The proposed MetaQAS can be used with arbitrary gradient-based QAS algorithms. Simulation results of variational quantum compiling on three- and four-qubit circuits show that the architectures optimized by MetaQAS converge much faster than a state-of-the-art gradient-based QAS algorithm, namely DQAS. MetaQAS also achieves a better solution than DQAS after fine-tuning of gate parameters.

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