arXiv subjects

Rodrigo M. Sanz

Publications and source records attributed to Rodrigo M. Sanz.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Emergence of a Macroscopic Cat State and Multi-Channel Entanglement in a Frustrated Cluster Spin Chain

We study a one-dimensional frustrated spin chain, which combines cluster-Ising and anisotropic next-nearest neighbor Ising models. We first offer a historical perspective that justifies the studied model. Then we study in detail the two quantum phases and prove that they are separated by a first order quantum phase transition. On one side, the ground state corresponds to a ferromagnetic phase, shows the presence of macroscopic cat states, and a small gap that closes in the thermodynamic limit. On the other phase, competing interactions avoid the establishment of a topological phase, though it conserves large incommensurate quantum correlations. We prove it is fundamentally distinct from a simple paramagnet, and we name it an incommensurate phase. This is a gapped phase, which gap does not close in the thermodynamic limit. While in the ferromagnetic phase there are two dominant Schmidt coefficients, in the incommensurate phase there are four. This corresponds to four distinct bipartite entanglement channels contributing substantially to the ground state. Finally, we discuss the utility of the macroscopic cat states for quantum metrology applications and the experimental feasibility of the system.

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arXiv2026

Adaptive time Compressed QITE (ACQ) and its geometrical interpretation

Imaginary time evolution (ITE) is a well-established method for ground-state preparation, a fundamental problem in many fields such as materials science, chemistry, and optimization. Quantum ITE (QITE) approximates this evolution on quantum hardware but suffers from high circuit depth and numerous measurements. In this work we introduce adaptive-time compressed QITE (ACQ), a novel algorithm that reduces resource-cost by combining adaptive time steps with circuit compression. This approach leverages geometric insights by characterizing its relationship to geodesic trajectories with a measure that distinguishes trajectories in CPN. Recalling that ITE is a gradient flow on the complex projective plane $\mathbb{CP}^N$, such trajectory measures allow one to measure the deviation from geodesicity of said flow. For Hamiltonians with only two distinct eigenvalues (spectral cardiality), ITE and QITE exactly trace geodesics, this fact motivates an adaptive strategy for systems whose corresponding spectral cardinality is greater than 2, where QITE unitaries are reused until an energy increase signals departure from the ITE path. This is implemented via a line search for energy minimization. Circuit compression is achieved by approximating the sequence of QITE unitaries with a single element of a one-parameter group. Numerical simulations on the transverse field Ising model and the Heisenberg model demonstrate that ACQ achieves comparable fidelity to standard QITE while significantly reducing the number of QITE optimizations and maintaining fixed circuit depth during propagation. Gate-count estimates and an analysis of the fidelity scaling with truncation parameters are provided. A gate count and performance comparison with the state of the art method double bracket QITE is also performed.

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arXiv2026

Efficiently architecting VQAs: Expressibility--Trainability--Resources Pareto-Optimality

Ansatz selection is a key factor in the performance of variational quantum algorithms (VQAs). While much of the state-of-the-art still relies on heuristic choices, an inadequate circuit structure can compromise both the expressive power and the trainability of the resulting model. Recent results have also established theoretical connections between expressibility and the onset of barren plateaus, highlighting the need for systematic criteria for ansatz selection. In this work, the ansatz is treated as a design feature to be optimized rather than a fixed block, and a design space exploration (DSE) is performed over a diverse set of parametrized quantum circuits (PQCs). Three complementary metrics -- expressibility, trainability, and resource cost -- are evaluated and used to analyze the trade-offs that emerge across different PQCs. Beyond identifying Pareto-optimal candidates, this multi-objective perspective helps clarify the interplay between these metrics and contributes quantitative evidence toward understanding the expressibility--trainability tension in variational circuits.

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arXiv2026

Exponential improvement in benchmarking multiphoton interference

Several photonic quantum technologies rely on the ability to generate multiple indistinguishable photons. Benchmarking the level of indistinguishability of these photons is essential for scalability. The Hong-Ou-Mandel dip provides a benchmark for the indistinguishability between two photons, and extending this test to the multi-photon setting has so far resulted in a protocol that computes the genuine n-photon indistinguishability (GI). However, this protocol has a sample complexity that increases exponentially with the number of input photons for an estimation of GI up to a given additive error. To address this problem, we introduce new theorems that strengthen our understanding of the relationship between distinguishability and the suppression laws of the quantum Fourier transform interferometer (QFT). Building on this, we propose a protocol using the QFT for benchmarking GI that achieves constant sample complexity for the estimation of GI up to a given additive error for prime photon numbers, and sub-polynomial scaling otherwise, representing an exponential improvement over the state of the art. We prove the optimality of our protocol in many relevant scenarios and validate our approach experimentally on Quandela's reconfigurable photonic quantum processor, where we observe a clear advantage in runtime and precision over the state of the art. We therefore establish the first scalable method for computing multi-photon indistinguishability, which applies naturally to current and near-term photonic quantum hardware.

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