arXiv subjects

Stephan Eidenbenz

Publications and source records attributed to Stephan Eidenbenz.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Effects of Trotter Error, Digitization Error, and Initial State Overlap on Tapered Quantum Phase Estimation for Minimum Eigenvalue Computation

We numerically implement full quantum circuits of optimal tapered Quantum Phase Estimation (in the form of an implementable approximate bandwidth-limited DPSS taper) for the purpose of minimum eigenvalue computation, where the Hamiltonian time-evolution unitary is implemented using standard Trotterization, and the taper state is constructed using an optimized bandwidth-limited taper. We illustrate, on representative quantum Hamiltonians, with tractable exact classical numerical quantum circuit simulations, how tapered QPE performs with respect to optimal phase sampling rate, absolute error, Shannon entropy of the optimal phase distribution, when the tQPE algorithm parameters are changed. Those algorithm parameters are Trotter error, finite sampling, imperfect initial states, total evolution time, and digitization error (number of phase qubits). The reported numerical experiments include up to $\ell=10$ phase qubits of precision with $m=3$ additional phase-register error suppression qubits, on a $4$-qubit Heisenberg quantum magnet model Hamiltonian, using up to 12th-order Trotterization. We numerically show i) the steady-state optimal phase sampling rate is determined by the initial state overlap with the ground-state, ii) with respect to phase sampling probability, or overall eigenvalue sampling error rate, there is no strong evolution time dependence for tQPE unless there is high Trotter error, iii) the approximated time-evolution unitaries in tQPE, like in standard QPE, can result in substantial ringing, which leads to non-physical eigenvalue estimates.

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arXiv2026

Entanglement Negativity in Noisy Quantum Volume Sampling

The Quantum Volume protocol uses scrambling random circuits to benchmark NISQ computers. Quantum Volume is generally well-regarded as a benchmark for small, noisy, quantum computers because it requires the quantum computer to implement many non-local entangling gates within a square-shaped circuit, which incentivizes high qubit count, long qubit coherence times, and low error rates on all hardware gates. Quantum Volume circuits inherently produce high-entanglement states that are fragile to errors and decoherence. The Quantum Volume benchmark measures an observable called heavy-output-probability (HOP), where an HOP of $0.5$ corresponds to complete loss of coherence, and in the limit of system size an HOP $\approx 0.84$ for a fully coherent quantum processor. Here, we numerically study the tradeoff between depolarizing noise, entanglement as quantified by the bipartite negativity measure, and HOP in quantum volume circuits. Our results contextualize prior small scale quantum volume demonstrations on quantum computers and highlight that under depolarizing noise, due to finite system size effects heavy output probabilities can be greater than $0.5$ while the bipartite negativity entanglement has been destroyed. This implies, although improbable, that a NISQ computer could pass the Quantum Volume benchmark test threshold of $2/3$ while the underlying quantum computation has no global entanglement -- albeit only for small $n$.

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arXiv2026

A Validation Framework for Quantum Simulation of Spin Dynamics against Inelastic Neutron Scattering and Classical Simulation

Quantitative validation of quantum simulations of dynamical spin response remains challenging because experiment, classical simulation, and quantum simulation do not produce the same native observables. This problem has become increasingly important as quantum simulation protocols for dynamical response have progressed from theory to hardware-level benchmarking against neutron-scattering data, while the longer term goal is validation in regimes that may eventually become classically intractable, including in future fault-tolerant implementations. Here, we develop a cross-pipeline validation framework for quantum simulation, using inelastic neutron scattering and classical many-body simulation as complementary experimental and computational anchors, based on explicit forward and inverse observable maps, covariance- or resampling-based uncertainty propagation, robustness tests for structured distortion, and a hierarchy of complementary metric families. The framework distinguishes stochastic uncertainty from robustness-induced distortion, carries both explicitly through the comparison chain, and uses the resulting metric-level uncertainty and distortion information to support layered validation at the pipeline, solver, and model levels. We also introduce actuator-aware feedback logic aimed at improving agreement without obscuring the physical origin of any remaining mismatch. We close by outlining future extensions of this methodology, including upstream uncertainty and distortion modeling, adaptive feedback, asymmetric validation beyond full classical benchmarking, fault-tolerant workflows, and community infrastructure for reproducible validation.

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arXiv2026

Learning Low-Energy Subspace Overlaps in Many-Body Systems with Measurement-Based and Coherent Quantum Strategies

Predicting the overlap of quantum states with specified low-energy subspaces is a key diagnostic for quantum many-body dynamics, with direct applications in state preparation, subspace-based algorithms, and the study of thermalization. We study the supervised prediction of subspace overlaps O_K between time-evolved states and K-dimensional low-energy eigenspaces of a 10-qubit Heisenberg spin chain following a local perturbation. We compare two quantum information extraction strategies: measurement-based learning, in which classical shadow features are processed by convolutional neural networks, and coherent quantum learning, in which quantum convolutional neural networks process the state directly. We further introduce physics-informed variants for both approaches, including Hamiltonian-aware shadows and QCNN gates aligned with the Heisenberg exchange structure. Across five dataset configurations spanning weak, moderate, and strong quench regimes, physics-informed QCNNs achieve stable performance, with mean test-set coefficients of determination R^2 = 0.753-0.846. Shadow-based methods show stronger regime dependence: they outperform QCNNs in the moderate-quench regime, reaching R^2 = 0.886, but underperform in weak and strong quenches at default shot budgets, where the best shadow results are R^2 = 0.615 and 0.672, respectively. Hardware validation on Quantinuum and IBM noise models shows that arbitrary state preparation is the dominant limitation, requiring approximately 2,044 two-qubit gates and causing near-complete depolarization before inference. These results identify a regime-dependent tradeoff between measurement-based and coherent quantum learning, with shadow methods excelling when the target remains locally accessible and physics-informed QCNNs providing more robust performance across dynamical regimes.

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arXiv2026

VQE as Initial State Preparation for QPE on Heisenberg Spin-Glass Hamiltonians

Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) is the quantum algorithmic workhorse for computing ground state energies of quantum Hamiltonians with quantum computers. Ground state energy calculation of physical systems is perhaps the most promising use case for quantum computing in terms of scientific and commercial value with a plausible path to outperformance of classical alternatives. This path, however, hinges on the availability of initial states for QPE with significant overlap with the true ground state. Using extensive (classical) numerical computations, we study whether the NISQ-era algorithm VQE (Variational Quantum Eigensolver) could be used to efficiently prepare high-overlap states of disordered fully-connected anisotropic Heisenberg spin glass quantum Hamiltonians with up to $15$ qubits. We find that (i) -- consistent with widely held, but rarely numerically illustrated beliefs -- VQE is generally unable to efficiently converge to the ground state for our Hamiltonians, which is a well-known issue with VQE due to a variety of factors including vanishing gradients and local minima; (ii) low energy states do not necessarily have large ground-state overlap, but there is typically a correlation between the two measures; (iii) adding more than three layers to the VQE ansatz neither improves overlap nor the energies found; and (iv) the best-found overlap scaling as a function of the Hamiltonian system size is not strongly exponentially decreasing, suggesting potential for VQE to be a heuristic state preparation algorithm for QPE.

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arXiv2026

Setting angles in quantum approximate optimization at utility-scale

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a powerful heuristic that seeks to solve combinatorial optimization problems using quantum hardware and classical optimization in tandem. Various methods exist to train the parameterized quantum circuits that serve as an ansatz in QAOA. However, which method works best to identify optimal angles for a given problem instance remains poorly understood, especially at utility-scale, i.e., $100$ qubits or more. In this work, we address this challenge through utility-scale benchmarks from which we distill operational guidance for QAOA practitioners. First, we investigate approximation techniques, such as matrix product states and Pauli propagation, to find optimal angles. Second, we train QAOA on small-scale representative problems and transfer the angles to larger ones. We then validate the results on quantum hardware for utility-scale problem instances that can be meaningfully executed. In this way, we identify insights for QAOA angle setting strategies that work best for problems at the utility scale, including as a function of resource cost for the search. Crucially, the operational implications we draw from our benchmarks will help quantum optimization practitioners execute QAOA end-to-end pipelines efficiently on current and future hardware.

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arXiv2026

SCALAR: A Neurosymbolic Framework for Automated Conjecture and Reasoning in Quantum Circuit Analysis

In this paper, we present SCALAR (Symbolic Conjecture and LLM-Assisted Reasoning), a neurosymbolic framework for automated conjecture generation in quantum circuit analysis built on top of the CUDA-Q open source framework. The system integrates quantum simulation, symbolic conjecture generation, and LLM-based interpretation. We evaluate SCALAR on 82 MaxCut instances from the MQLib benchmark dataset and extend the analysis to 2,000 randomly generated graphs across four topologies: regular, Erdos-Renyi, Barabasi-Albert, and Watts-Strogatz. The framework generates conjectured bounds relating optimal QAOA parameters to graph invariants, including known relationships such as periodicity constraints on the phase separation parameter $\gamma$. SCALAR also recovers previously reported parameter transfer phenomena across structurally similar instances. Additionally, the system identifies correlations between graph structural features and optimization landscape properties, which we characterize through invariant-based descriptors. Using CUDA-Q tensor network simulator, we scale experiments to instances of up to 77 qubits. We discuss the accuracy, generality, and limitations of the generated conjectures, including sensitivity to graph class and quantum circuit depth.

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arXiv2026

Quantum Hypergraph Partitioning

Quantum optimization algorithms are inherently probabilistic, yet they are most often used to search for a single high-quality solution. In this paper, we instead study hypergraph partitioning problems in which the desired output is itself a probability distribution over partitions. We introduce a distributional perspective on hypergraph partitioning motivated by maximin and minimax objectives such as Fair Cut Cover, and we show how these objectives align naturally with the measurement distribution produced by QAOA. To motivate the formulation, we introduce a workforce-scheduling-inspired toy problem, the Greatest Expected Imbalance problem, in which the goal is to minimize the worst expected imbalance across hyperedges. We then develop QAOA-based quantum solvers that represent distributional solutions natively through quantum states, together with quadratic hypergraph objectives suitable for standard and multi-objective QAOA. These formulations connect balanced hypergraph partitioning, polarized community discovery, and distributional fairness under a unified quantum optimization framework. For comparison, we provide optimal polynomial-time classical approximation algorithms based on semidefinite programming and hyperplane rounding. Experiments on real-world and synthetic hypergraphs demonstrate that low-depth multi-angle QAOA can outperform these classical approximation baselines on the proposed objectives, highlighting the potential of quantum algorithms for optimization problems where the solution is a distribution rather than a single partition.

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arXiv2026

The Quantum Hamiltonian Analysis Toolkit: Lowering the Barrier to Quantum Computing with Hamiltonians

We present the Quantum Hamiltonian Analysis Toolkit (QHAT), a newly developed application that provides a user-friendly interface for studying Hamiltonians and performing Hamiltonian simulation on fault-tolerant quantum computers. QHAT enables the generation and analysis of Hamiltonians through a powerful and feature-rich application, driven by simple inputs designed to reflect user needs rather than algorithmic details, so that productive research on your application of interest can be done without needing a deep understanding of quantum computing algorithms. QHAT enables a streamlined workflow to analyze Hamiltonians and Hamiltonian simulation, supporting multiple choices of algorithms and analyses. It supports Hamiltonians from multiple sources but can also generate Hamiltonians based on a simple description of the system, saving intermediate data files for re-use when generating related Hamiltonians. Deriving the parameters for quantum computing algorithms can be a challenge, so QHAT is built around user-facing concepts such as maximum allowable error, rather than being built around algorithmic details such as steps counts or order parameters. An emphasis on user-friendly interfaces and efficient analysis means that the barrier to entry is low while rapidly providing results useful for a broad scope of studies.

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arXiv2026

Structure-Aware Transformers for Learning Near-Optimal Trotter Orderings with System-Size Generalization in 1D Heisenberg Hamiltonians

Trotterization is a standard approach for simulating quantum time evolution on quantum computers, where the Hamiltonian is split into local terms and each term is applied in sequence. The order of these terms affects the fidelity of the simulation when they do not commute, so the choice of ordering directly impacts the accuracy of the simulation. We study this problem for one-dimensional XXZ Heisenberg Hamiltonians using a structured set of 24 candidate orderings derived from colorings of the Hamiltonian's commutation graph and their group permutations. Finding the best candidate for large systems becomes prohibitive because fidelity evaluation is computationally expensive. In this work, we train a transformer encoder on smaller systems to predict the best candidate ordering for larger systems directly from Hamiltonian and Trotter-configuration features, without computing candidate fidelities at inference time. The model is trained on in-range systems of 3 to 14 qubits with 15-qubit systems held out for validation. Experimental results show that the model reaches a mean test fidelity gap of 0.00115 relative to the best of the 24 candidates on out-of-range systems of 16 to 20 qubits. A training-size sweep further shows that generalization emerges once training includes systems up to L=8 qubits, with validation at L=9, and the gap continues to decrease as the training range grows. To our knowledge, this is the first application of a learned model to Trotter ordering, and it motivates future work on AI-guided Trotter ordering with generalization across Hamiltonian families and system types.

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arXiv2026

An Analysis of Commutation-Based Trotter Ordering Strategies on Heisenberg-Style Hamiltonians

Trotterization is a technique that allows one to approximate a time evolution of a Hamiltonian by repeatedly evolving the individual terms of the Hamiltonian one-at-a-time for small time durations. Bounds on the error of this approximation exist; however, they are typically loose and moreover, it is known that the true error can be greatly influenced by the order in which the terms of the Hamiltonian are evolved. In this work, we consider various ordering strategies that exploit the commutation structure of the Hamiltonian, in addition to a few other baseline ordering strategies. These commutation-based strategies involve dividing the terms of the Hamiltonian into groups where all the terms within each group commute with one another. These groupings can be obtained by using graph coloring techniques on what we call the "commutation graph" of the Hamiltonian. We prove various results regarding the structure and properties of such commutation graphs for certain classes of Hamiltonians. We also empirically calculate the (true) Trotter error using these ordering strategies on various 1D and 2D Heisenberg-style systems.

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arXiv2026

Learning Cut Distributions with Quantum Optimization

Many combinatorial optimization problems admit a maximin fairness variant, where the aim is to find a distribution over possible solutions which maximizes an expected worst-case outcome. However, the support for an optimal distribution may be exponential, which can be intractable to represent in the worst case. To this end, we propose a quantum based approach to solving distribution optimization problems. Expanding on work analyzing the Dynamical Lie Algebras of the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA), we show that with a finite number of layers, a QAOA ansatz can be constructed to capture any distribution over bitstrings. We show that the resulting circuit is able to effectively solve the Fair Cut Cover, a fair interpretation of the classical Fractional Cut Cover Problem. In addition, we show that our algorithm is provably better than classical approximations on certain graph structures and empirically outperforms these classical algorithms on tested instances.

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arXiv2026

Numerical Experiments with Parameter Setting of Trotterized Quantum Phase Estimation for Quantum Hamiltonian Ground State Computation

We numerically investigate quantum circuit elementary-gate level instantiations of the standard Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) algorithm for the task of computing the ground-state energy of a quantum magnet; the disordered fully-connected quantum Heisenberg spin glass model. We consider (classical simulations of) QPE circuit computations on relatively small quantum Hamiltonians ($3$ qubits) with up to $10$ phase bits of precision, using up to Trotter order $10$. We systematically study the inputs of QPE, specifically time evolution, Trotter order, Trotter steps, and initial state, and illustrate how these inputs practically determine how QPE operates. From this we outline a coherent set of quantum algorithm input and tuning guidelines. One of the notable properties we characterize is that QPE sampling of the optimal digitized phase converges to a fixed rate. This results in strong diminishing returns of optimal phase sampling rates which can occur when the Trotter error is surprisingly high.

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arXiv2025

Quantum Homotopy Algorithm for Solving Nonlinear PDEs and Flow Problems

Quantum algorithms to integrate nonlinear PDEs governing flow problems are challenging to discover but critical to enhancing the practical usefulness of quantum computing. We present here a near-optimal, robust, and end-to-end quantum algorithm to solve time-dependent, dissipative, and nonlinear PDEs. We embed the PDEs in a truncated, high dimensional linear space on the basis of quantum homotopy analysis. The linearized system is discretized and integrated using finite-difference methods that use a compact quantum algorithm. The present approach can adapt its input to the nature of nonlinearity and underlying physics. The complexity estimates improve existing approaches in terms of scaling of matrix operator norms, condition number, simulation time, and accuracy. We provide a general embedding strategy, bounds on stability criteria, accuracy, gate counts and query complexity. A physically motivated measure of nonlinearity is connected to a parameter that is similar to the flow Reynolds number $Re_{\textrm{H}}$, whose inverse marks the allowed integration window, for given accuracy and complexity. We illustrate the embedding scheme with numerical simulations of a one-dimensional Burgers problem. This work shows the potential of the hybrid quantum algorithm for simulating practical and nonlinear phenomena on near-term and fault-tolerant quantum devices.

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arXiv2025

Quantum Data Learning of Topological-to-Ferromagnetic Phase Transitions in the 2+1D Toric Code Loop Gas Model

Quantum data learning (QDL) provides a framework for extracting physical insights directly from quantum states, bypassing the need for any identification of the classical observable of the theory. A central challenge in many-body physics is that the identity of quantum phases, especially those with topological order, are often inaccessible through local observables or simple symmetry-breaking diagnostics. Here, we apply QDL techniques to the 2+1-dimensional toric-code loop-gas model in a magnetic field. Ground states are generated across multiple lattice sizes using a parametrized loop-gas circuit (PLGC) with a variational quantum-eigensolver (VQE) approach. We then train a quantum convolutional neural network (QCNN) across the full field-parameter range to perform phase classification and capture the overall phase structure. We also employ a physics-aware training protocol that excludes the near-critical region (0.2 <= x <= 0.4)) around (x_c = 0.25), the phase-transition point estimated by quantum Monte Carlo, reserving this window for testing to evaluate the ability of the model to learn the phase transition. In parallel, we implement an unsupervised quantum k-means method based on state overlaps, which partitions the dataset into two phases without prior labeling. Our supervised QDL approach recovers the phase structure and accurately locates the phase transition, in close agreement with previously reported values; the unsupervised QDL approach recovers the phase structure and locates the phase transition with a small offset as expected in finite volumes; both QDL methods outperform classical alternatives. These findings establish QDL as an effective framework for characterizing topological quantum matter, studying finite volume effects, and probing phase diagrams of higher-dimensional systems.

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arXiv2025

Evaluating the Limits of QAOA Parameter Transfer at High-Rounds on Sparse Ising Models With Geometrically Local Cubic Terms

The emergent practical applicability of the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) for approximate combinatorial optimization is a subject of considerable interest. One of the primary limitations of QAOA is the task of finding a set of good parameters. Parameter transfer is a phenomenon where QAOA angles trained on problem instances that are self-similar tend to perform well for other problem instances from that similar class. This suggests a potentially highly efficient and scalable non-variational learning method for QAOA angle finding. We systematically study QAOA parameter transferability from small problems (16, 27 qubits) onto large problem instances (up to 156 qubits) for heavy-hex graph Ising models with geometrically local higher order terms using the Julia based QAOA simulation tool JuliQAOA to perform classical angle finding for up to 49 QAOA layers. Parameter transfer of the fixed angles is validated using a combination of full statevector, Projected Entangled Pair States, Matrix Product State, and LOWESA numerical simulations. We find that the QAOA parameter transfer from single instances applied to unseen problem instances does not in general provide monotonically improving performance as a function of p - there are many cases where the performance temporarily decreases as a function of p - but despite this the transferred angles have a general trend of improved expectation value as the QAOA depth increases, in many cases converging close to the true ground-state energy of the 100+ qubit instances. We also sample the hardware-compatible Ising models using the ensemble of fixed QAOA angles on several superconducting qubit IBM Quantum processors with 127, 133, and 156 qubits. We find continuous solution quality improvement of the hardware-compatible QAOA circuits run on the IBM NISQ processors up to p=5 on ibm_fez, p=9 on ibm_torino, and p=10 on ibm_pittsburgh.

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arXiv2025

MPS-JuliQAOA: User-friendly, Scalable MPS-based Simulation for Quantum Optimization

We present the MPS-JuliQAOA simulator, a user-friendly, open-source tool to simulate the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) of any optimization problem that can be expressed as diagonal Hamiltonian. By leveraging Julia-language constructs and the ITensor package to implement a Matrix Product State (MPS) approach to simulating QAOA, MPS-Juli-QAOA effortlessly scales to 512 qubits and 20 simulation rounds on the standard de-facto benchmark 3-regular MaxCut QAOA problem. MPS-JuliQAOA also has built-in parameter finding capabilities, which is a crucial performance aspect of QAOA. We illustrate through examples that the user does not need to know MPS principles or complex automatic differentiation techniques to use MPS-JuliQAOA. We study the scalability of our tool with respect to runtime, memory usage and accuracy tradeoffs. Code available at https://github.com/lanl/JuliQAOA.jl/tree/mps.

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arXiv2025

Variational Quantum Simulations of a Two-Dimensional Frustrated Transverse-Field Ising Model on a Trapped-Ion Quantum Computer

Quantum computers are an ideal platform to study the ground state properties of strongly correlated systems due to the limitation of classical computing techniques particularly for systems exhibiting quantum phase transitions. While the error rates of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers are still high, simulating strongly correlated systems on such devices and extracting information of possible phases may be within reach. The frustrated transverse-field Ising model (TFIM) is such a system with multiple ordered magnetic phases. In this study, we simulate a two-dimensional frustrated TFIM with next-nearest-neighbor spin-exchange interactions at zero temperature. The competition between the nearest-neighbor ferromagnetic and next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic coupling gives rise to frustration in the system. Moreover, the presence of quantum fluctuations makes the ground-state phase profile even richer. We use the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) to compute the phases on a square lattice with periodic boundary conditions for a system of 16 sites (qubits). The trained VQE circuits are compared to exact diagonalization, allowing us to extract error measures of VQE. We focus on the ground-state phase transitions of this model, where VQE succeeds in finding the dominant magnetic phases. The optimized VQE circuits are then executed on the Quantinuum H1-1 trapped-ion quantum computer without using any error mitigation techniques. Our experiments show near perfect recovery of the magnetic phases of the frustrated model through ground-state energy, the energy derivative, and the spin correlation functions. Thus, we show that the trapped-ion quantum processor is able to achieve reliable simulations of a strongly correlated system within the limitations of the VQE approach.

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