Improving Measurement for Near Term Quantum Computers

The ability to simulate chemistry accurately allows for significant developments in many fields such as material and drug
discovery. Unfortunately, the underlying equations that describe chemistry become exponentially harder to solve as we increase
the size of the system. This makes it impossible for us to accurately simulate useful molecules on classical computers. A potential
solution to this is quantum computing. In the near term, an algorithm called the Variational Quantum Eigensolver could be used
on quantum computers for the problem. However, one of the limiting factors of this algorithm is the time taken to measure
quantities, such as energy of a molecule, from the quantum computer. The project aims to find techniques to reduce the number
and therefore time needed to accurately measure quantities, and hence improve the speed of quantum computers. We intend to
do this through the idea of ghost Paulis. These are additional ‘operators’ that we add to what we measure, that don’t change the
value measured but reduce the number of measurements we need to accurately determine the value.

Faculty Supervisor:

Artur Izmaylov

Student:

Partner:

University of Oxford

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Quantum Science

University:

University of Toronto

Program: