Title
Optimizing Quantum Heuristics With Meta-Learning
Abstract
Variational quantum algorithms, a class of quantum heuristics, are promising candidates for the demonstration of useful quantum computation. Finding the best way to amplify the performance of these methods on hardware is an important task. Here, we evaluate the optimization of quantum heuristics with an existing class of techniques called "meta-learners." We compare the performance of a meta-learner to evolutionary strategies, L-BFGS-B and Nelder-Mead approaches, for two quantum heuristics (quantum alternating operator ansatz and variational quantum eigensolver), on three problems, in three simulation environments. We show that the meta-learner comes near to the global optima more frequently than all other optimizers we tested in a noisy parameter setting environment. We also find that the meta-learner is generally more resistant to noise, for example, seeing a smaller reduction in performance in Noisy and Sampling environments, and performs better on average by a "gain" metric than its closest comparable competitor L-BFGS-B. Finally, we present evidence that indicates the meta-learner trained on small problems will generalize to larger problems. These results are an important indication that meta-learning and associated machine learning methods will be integral to the useful application of noisy near-term quantum computers.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.1007/s42484-020-00022-w
QUANTUM MACHINE INTELLIGENCE
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Variational quantum algorithms, Meta-learning, Optimization, Quantum alternating operator ansatz, Variational quantum eigensolver, Long short-term memory
Journal
3
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
2524-4906
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Wilson Max100.34
Stromswold Sam200.34
Filip A. Wudarski352.86
Stuart Hadfield4193.05
Tubman Norm M.500.34
Eleanor Rieffel648848.71